Politically Correct Version of 'The Night Before Christmas!'
'Twas the night before Christmas and Santa's a wreck...
How to live in a world that's politically correct?
His workers no longer would answer to Elves
Vertically Challenged they were calling themselves
And labor conditions at the north pole
Were alleged by the union to stifle the soul
Four reindeer had vanished, without much propriety
Released to the wilds by the Humane Society
And equal employment had made it quite clear
That Santa had better not use just reindeer
So Dancer and Donner, Comet and Cupid
Were replaced with 4 pigs, and you know that looked stupid!
The runners had been removed from his sleigh;
The ruts were termed dangerous by the E P A
And people had started to call for the cops
When they heard sled noises on their roof-tops
Second-hand smoke from his pipe had his workers quite frightened
His fur trimmed red suit was called Unenlightened
And to show you the strangeness of life's ebbs and flows
Rudolf was suing over unauthorised use of his nose
And had gone on Geraldo, in front of the nation
Demanding millions in over-due compensation
So, half of the reindeer were gone; and his wife
Who suddenly said she'd enough of this life
Joined a self-help group, packed, and left in a whiz
Demanding from now on her title was Ms
And as for the gifts, why, he'd ne'er had a notion
That making a choice could cause so much commotion
Nothing of leather, nothing of fur
Which meant nothing for him. And nothing for her
Nothing that might be construed to pollute
Nothing to aim. Nothing to shoot
Nothing that clamoured or made lots of noise
Nothing for just girls. Or just for boys
Nothing that claimed to be gender specific
Nothing that's warlike or non-pacific
No candy or sweets ... they were bad for the tooth
Nothing that seemed to embellish the truth
And fairy tales, while not yet forbidden
Were like Ken and Barbie, better off hidden
For they raised the hackles of those psychological
Who claimed the only good gift was ecological
No baseball, no football ... someone could get hurt;
Besides; playing sports exposed kids to dirt
Dolls were said to be sexist, and should be passe;
And Nintendo would rot your entire brain away
So Santa just stood there, dishevelled, perplexed;
He just could not figure out what to do next
He tried to be merry, tried to be gay
But you've got to be careful with that word today
His sack was quite empty, limp to the ground;
Nothing fully acceptable was to be found
Something special was needed, a gift that he might
Give to all without angering the left or the right
A gift that would satisfy, with no indecision
Each group of people, every religion;
Every ethnicity, every hue
Everyone, everywhere ... even you
So here is that gift, it's price beyond worth ...
May you and your loved ones enjoy peace on earth
Based on an unoriginal earwig from P Halliwell <p.halliwell@x400.icl.co.uk>, December 1996.
