Santa Mulls Career Change

Icy Land of Holiday Horrors

from Sploid

While the dreaded day is still nearly four weeks away, the catastrophes are already piling up in Norway.

The first grim omen was the train-track slaughter of 40 reindeer. But that cold, cursed land had barely recovered from the shock when Santa Claus himself was thrown from his sleigh as a drunken mob watched in horror.

St. Nick's visit to the Norwegian town of Tana was supposed to be the happy climax to the early Xmas celebration. Instead, Santa's horse got spooked and the sleigh flipped over in the village square, sending Claus - or Julenissen, as he's known in Norway - and two associates smashing into the frozen pavement.

Claus was rushed to the emergency room. Children and drunkards wept in the streets.

300 miles south in Trondheim, Dennis Berge got an unhappy visit from the "Christmas Elf." Berge was sitting at the computer in his underwear when he heard a door open and then saw a sinister Santa looming over him.

"He was wearing a beard, red cap, red suit and even a black belt," Berge told the Adresseavisen news site. Santa fled the scene and is still at large.

The holiday troubles in Scandinavia are legion. Whether it's the months without sunshine, the epidemic alcoholism of its people or the inherent pagan evil hidden within the Nordic version of Christmas, the Santa Claus beloved around the world would be unrecognizable to the Norwegians, Swedes and Finns.

Norway is still reeling from a Christmas Elf's brutal attack on a child at a shopping mall.

The innocent youngster was visiting the mall's resident fjøsnisse, a yuletide elf known to live in barns and travel with chickens. When Joakim Osland politely attempted to give the elf's hen a friendly pat, holiday hell broke loose.

"This seemed to drive the 'elf' berserk," Aftenposten reported.

"He came up behind me and shouted at me," a bruised and red-faced Osland said after the attempted strangulation. "I didn't think elves did that kind of thing. He grabbed me, first with one hand, then the other, so that he was strangling me. He said I should respect animals."

In the town of Floroe, a veteran mall Santa retired in disgust after suffering endless humiliation and terrible violence.

Constantly harassed, pushed and ridiculed by monstrous children, the shopping center Santa was finally attacked by a gang of teenagers. The thugs ripped off his costume and left him beaten on the floor.

Norway's strange, unhealthy relationship with its Santa Claus is made all too clear by the most beloved holiday joke amongst Norwegians: a passenger jet's nose painted to simulate a fatal mid-air collision with Santa.