SLASHER SANTA: OUT OF CONTROL COMMERCIALIZATION ...

... was bound to lead to this; a knife-wielding Santa as part of a display in front of a Manhattan (NY) home.

Joel Krupnik and Mildred Castellanos decked the front of their Manhattan mansion this year with a scene that includes a knife-wielding 5-foot-tall St. Nick and a tree full of decapitated Barbie dolls.

Hidden partly behind a tree, the merry old elf grasps a disembodied doll's head with fake blood streaming from its eye sockets.

I feel no sorrow for the Barbies ... but once a sacred institution loses its awe and wonder (such as our celebration of the birth of God's Son) and once adherents capitulate to secular influences, a cycle of ever increasing degradation occurs until the institution is only a shadow of its original self ... mocked and belittled ... being seen as little more than a curious anachronism out of a distant past.

No one answered the family's door to explain on Tuesday, but Krupnik told the New York Post it was a statement about the commercialization and secularization of Christmas.

"Christmas has religious origins," he said. "It's in the Bible. Santa is not in the Bible. He's not a religious symbol."

Efforts have been made year-after-year to corral this commercialization of the birthday of Jesus our Savior. Even ...

Pope Benedict XVI complained this week that Christmas festivities have been "subjected to a sort of commercial pollution." [CWNews]

Conservative Christians have attempted to reintroduce a religious component to Christmas, both in the public square and in the schools, "chiding even President Bush" for sending cards wishing supporters happy "holiday season."

2005; Christmas; Cultural decay; Santa Claus