BACK TO THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD
Accordiing to researcher Dr. Laura Meehan of the Samuel Horwitz Institute for Mental Heath Research in Chicago, this is actually a combination of regular bipolar disorder, charaterized by chronic mood swings and the more recently publicized seasonal depression, caused by winters longer periods of darkness. "The problem here for Santa," said Dr. Meehan, "Is that it's pretty dark right now in Alaska, can you imagine what it's like in the North Pole. Santa has a mood swing problem to begin with, further enhanced by being in the dark right now, his busy season."
According to startling research done by Dr. Meehan and her team of researchers this may explain alot. After interviewing 1000 individuals in their 40's who voluntered for this project, 998 of them had disappointing Christmas's the exact same years. Dr Meehan states "Sometimes Santa's down mood ends before Christmas Eve, sometimes it doesn't. Remember how some Christmas's you had your heart set on a certain toy, but instead got clothes? Our research shows Santa was likely in a real blue funk that Christmas . In fact, I myself compared my most disappointing Christmas as a child with the statements of our volunteers and found that very year, 1959, was one of Santa's worst! I had written Santa asking for a pony and got pajama's. The fact that he didn't bring me that pony may have been caused by his being quite depressed. Or perhaps it was because I grew up in Manhattan."
Experts in the medical community say they are quite optimistic that with proper maintenance drugs, Santa'a problem, after centuries of suffering, will be under control. This means starting next Christmas, no child will ever find a pair of pajamas under the tree again. Santa is scheduled to meet with Dr. Meehan January 5th for an initial consultation.