Santa Bear, where are you? The Familia Sagrada is gathered in your name.

Some mute allegory of arctic ritual greets clients of this firm.  Whimsy and non-aligned sentiment inform this congress of symbols, an aloof nod to the fact of winter, an ironic grin, a tableaux insouciant, without roots.  It cannot inspire hope or committment to an ideal, or kindle the spirit of sacrifice.  It cannot move the gelid heart to flow with human sentiment again.  It can give a grin to a distracted passerby.  A sidelong glance of casual cheer, vetted by the political and for the sensitized, but beyond the pale of real need, beyond the reach of guilt or passion.

What begins in SantaBear, ends in plush toy menageries, in the artificial intention of design, in the service of lubricious commerce.  I would stifle the clutch of indignation to see an honest, if misbegotten, creche again. I would absolve a Menorah of its martial past.  If it came to it, I would kneel before the dotted circle of a paleolithic sun totem split by the solstice alignment, and invoke nameless gods, before I would pay homage to a polyester clan, a bloodless fantasy imposed on children by denatured "them".

But it won't come to it.  The strains of carefully chosen choral music echo among the glass panes of the atrium, and the low sun outside halos frozen street signs with the aureole of memories we cannot share anymore.  So we shuffle past, grateful for even winsome nonsense in the dearth of passion, in this season when giving is an accusation, and accepting is a failure of self.