Merry Christmas At Work

Every year my building puts out a huge Christmas display that spans the entire front lobby--a full city block long. Now this building management company manages a lot of Indianapolis' buildings. They also manage the building my company's district office is in, and the building my last job was in. I was at that company for 6 years and this one for almost 6 and in all that time, I've not seen the same decorations twice. So they obviously have a lot of them.

And some of them are pretty old vintage, you can tell. If you look closely, you can see the varnish has tiny cracks and the colors have that faded look that old hand-colored photos have.

You might think that would make them nostalgicly appealling. I thought so, too. At first.But then, as I started to look at these things, I realized how strange they really are.

Like this:A scene from NBC's Dateline: To Catch a Predator. You can't see him in this pic, but Santa is standing at the window in his nightshirt. Looking out for Chris Hansen, I assume.

Or this: Tiny old men with do-rags and axes.

And seriously. What the hell is going on here?