Australia Starts the War on Christmas
According to News.com.au, Nov. 11:
SANTAS working in shopping centres across Australia have been banned from bellowing “ho ho ho” because it might frighten children.
[…]“The reason behind that is we find that in some cases the little kids can get a little bit scared of the deep ‘ho, ho, hos’ and we ask them to be mindful of keeping their voices to a lower level,” [Westaff national operations manager Glen Jansz] said.
According to AFP,
One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use “ho ho ho” because it could frighten children and was too close to “ho”, a US slang term for prostitute.
Thankfully, today we have:
Recruitment firm Westaff, which supplies hundreds of Santas for events around Australia, has backed down from its ban on the traditional greeting following a backlash from employees.
The company wanted to ban “Ho, ho, ho” for fear it might scare some of the children.
A Myer spokesman said store management believed the expression was an important Christmas tradition.