Christmas Unicorn Viewer

Once the tradition of Insanity Claus began, there is always the issue of what to do next year. Each year things got more elaborate. One of the early years, Insanity Claus brought a Christmas Unicorn Viewer for everyone. It was a piece of plastic in the shape of a small mask, that had red cellophane over one eye and green cellophane over the other.

The idea was that Christmas Unicorns were invisible, and could only be seen through the viewer, but only if you were crazy.

There was a flange coming of off the mask which appeared to be meant to be held with the hand, since the mask had no means of remaining in place. The flange came from the center of the mask, and sloped outward into a pointed tip.

The mask had instructions written in the mask to inform the wearer how to use the mask appropriately. The instruction was a simple word written under the eye-hole that indicated which eye should look through this hole: right or left. Following these instructions, it becomes clear that the flange is not meant to be held by the hand. It is meant to stick upwards from the nose. Thus, it appears to be a horn on the wearer's forehead, turning the wearer into a Christmas Unicorn.

As an aside, this is part of why later drawings showed Insanity Claus as having a different color in each eye.

Someday, Insanity Claus hopes to make a cartoon about The Christmas Unicorn. Insanity Claus wrote a short story last year, which is below.
James woke up before his older brother, Hurbert. Today was Christmas. James was too excited to sleep. Hurbert always slept in on holidays.

When James went to see the Christmas tree, he noticed something moving outside through the living room window. It was a unicorn. But not just any unicorn.
It had a red eye and green eye and a golden horn.

The unicorn was eating the poinsettia plant that Mrs. Smith next door gave them for Christmas. Hurbert had just left it on the front porch.

James rushed down the hall to find Hurbert still sleeping. “There’s a unicorn outside,” he said. Hurbert opened one cynical eye and looked at him. “A unicorn is a mythical beast”. James didn’t know what “mythical” meant. “It has red and green eyes.” he said. Hurbert closed his eye and said, “Leave me alone”. James tugged on the blanket and said “and it’s eating Mrs. Smith’s red and green plant”. Hurbert growled, “It’s a poinsettia and it’s poisonous. Don’t eat it. GO AWAY.” Hurbert rolled over covering himself up in a ball of blankets. James went back to the living room.

The unicorn was still there. It was now eating the holly wreath that was on the front door, nibbling on each little red berry. It could see James through the window in the door. The unicorn walked right through the door like a ghost, right up to James, and said: “Merry Christmas, James”.

James shot back to the bedroom and shouted, “It talks! It talks!”. Hurbert sat straight up in bed, mumbling “Wha?”. James was bouncing on the bed now, ranting “The unicorn talks, and it said Merry Christmas”. Hurbert pushed James out of the door.

James went back to the living room, dejected and confused by his brother’s lack of enthusiasm. When he got to the living room, the unicorn was there, eating the ornaments on the Christmas tree. James hung his head and said, “My brother says you aren’t here.” “But I am here” said the unicorn. “I know”, said James. The unicorn came over to James and looked him in the eyes and said: “Do you want to play?”

James brightened at this idea, and said: “Yeah!” The unicorn’s eyes flashed, and James became a somewhat smaller Christmas unicorn. They ran outside to play in the snow.

Moral: If at first you cannot see it, perhaps you should stop trying.

Suspend Disbelief

Be Believing

Become as a child

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This story was inspired by a short story called "The Unicorn in the Garden" by James Thurber.
http://membres.lycos.fr/jpcharp/unicorn.htm
My story has various hidden references to James Thurber, as a tribute.

Santa's Twin

As the next Christmas neared, I was taken aback when my niece Heather asked if Insanity Claus was coming back again this year. I had forgotten all about him - I saw it as a one time thing. So all you people who enjoy Insanity Claus can thank Heather Pinto for his continued existence.

The story was embelleshied this year by explaining the relationship between Santa and Insanity Claus. They are brothers. Even better, they are twins. Insanity Claus overcompensates for his brother being the dominant twin. Insanity Claus is emotionally off balance, and is jealous of his brother. He doesn't like how everyone knows who Santa is, but people don't know about him - or worse, mistake Insanity as being Santa.

Insanity moved as far from his brother as he could. He doesn't have unkind feelings for his brother, he just needed his space. So he settled at the South Pole.

Origins

As a parent of young children and a Christian, I wanted to separate Santa Claus from the Religious aspect of Christmas. I knew my kids would eventually learn that Santa Claus was a lie - a really big lie! It doesn't take much to extrapolate this to the Nativity. So I needed to find a way to keep the fun part of Christmas as fun, and the holy part of Christmas as holy.

So I decided to create my own Christmas theme persona - after the fact.

We had bought a floor futan to use in the tiny hallway we called a family room. Having small children, it got dirty fast. We washed the cover of the futan matress, and it shrank. So I thought: What are we going to do with this huge zippered bag?

Then a lot of thoughts came rushing in at once. I remembered a Groucho Marx movie called Coconuts where Groucho and Chico are arguing over a contract. During the discussion, Groucho keeps tearing parts off of the contract to discard those clauses. They eventually end up with a tiny peice of paper, which they both sign. Part of the dialog went like this - Groucho looks at the document and says "Insanity Clause! There aint no Insanity Clause!". This is where the name of the persona came from.

I envisioned Insanity Claus coming in the bag with the gifts. His head was sticking out of the bag, and he was jumping around like you do at a summer picnic rally race.

So - how do I differentiate Insanity Claus from Santa Claus, but still leverage the mental image of Insanity Claus we all share. I had to keep the "outfit" basically the same, but really easy to tell the difference. I decided to make his outfit green, opposed to red, because it is the other Christmas color and because it was my favorite color (at the time).

Next was the "Ho! Ho! Ho!". Insanity Claus needed to laugh differently, so he goes: "Ha! Ha! Ha!".

So what does Insanity Claus bring to children? Crazy stuff, of course. He started out simple, bringing my kids (and niece Heather) their favorite foods (whatever I could find around the house). Heather got 10 LBs of potatos. Amy got chocolate pudding. Katie got a huge bottle of pickles. Jennie got some meat product in a can. Emily was a baby and I can't remember what she got.

That's all I had come up with when Insanity Claus first came.