Crap for Christmas!

This Christmas as you solemnly gaze at your grandmother's nativity scene be sure to check if any of the figures look out of place. Is that angel laying a turd beside the donkey!?

It's not impossible, especially if she once traveled to the autonomous Spanish region of Catalonia. For centuries it has been a yuletide custom there to decorate homes with small pooping statues. Each year children eagerly seek out the defecating figurines among the nativity's usual suspects. Called Caganers, which apparently translates as "The Shitting Man," they come in all sorts of guises, from footballers and movie stars to Obama and Osama, all preferences are catered to.

The original purpose of the custom is not known for certain, but one intriguing theory is that the original Caganer, a defecating peasant in a red hat, promised a fertile growing season and bountiful crop. Displaying one or more of the little poop statues is a good omen, a sign of health, happiness and prosperity in the coming new year. Another view is that the statue, placed as it is among the most holy symbols of the Christian tradition, represents the shared earth-bound humanity of all God's children. It's a nice thought, and a hilarious means of expressing it.

I read somewhere that we should expect the business of being serious to be funny. On the surface this seems like a not very clever paradox, but my own experience has been that some of the greatest insights come with tears of laughter streaming down your face. Romping farce masterpieces such as Joseph Heller's Catch 22, Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk achieve this. I can hear Mary Poppins singing, "Just a spoonful of humor helps the deep unsettling truths go down, the deep unsettling truths go down, the deep unsettling truths go down, Just a spoonful of humor helps the deep unsettling truths go down, in the most delightful way." (Note the executive making deals whilst dropping turds. Is this metaphorical or literal given our present "economic crisis"?)