It’s a cold day at the North Pole when we stop believing in Santa Claus.

• Photo Ryn Gargulinski
• Santa Claus is one cool dude.

Santa symbolizes the warm, cozy spirit of the season’s generosity. He is the magical man with big hugs and an even bigger toy sack. He’s our early white knight in shining armor, the one who secrets us away from the worldly woes to a place we can sit around all day eating bonbons.

We later yen to marry such a person, especially since it would mean we could quit our day job.

When we learn Santa is merely a myth, a piece of our innocence dies.

My revelation came around age 10, when I noted the handwriting on Santa’s thank you for the cookies note was suspiciously similar to my dad’s. My cousin confirmed my suspicions by later admitting his Santa wrote like my aunt.

If my cousin said it, it had to be true. He was always the crafty one who knew where grandpa kept the beer and where his mom hid her cigarettes.

Although my cousin and I got over the Santa blow fairly quickly — we were fine as long as we still got our gifts — some kids don’t take it as smoothly.

Some react with rage, Psych Central warns, livid that Mom and Dad lied to them all those years. Others become crushed and weepy. Some run to the playground to share the news, often getting beat up by kids who still want to believe.

Still others express relief. “They needed to have their perceptions of reality confirmed,” Psych Central says.

Those kids are probably pretty boring.

Confirming reality is nothing we need to rush. It’ll confirm itself on its own in a really big way with really big bills and even bigger headaches.

Santa lets us linger in a fantasy world, one where magic and goodness still freely exist. This is provided, of course, we stick with the cheery version of St. Nick and not some of the scary Santas of late.

Despite the fact that several of us at the Weekly enjoy sports, that particular subset of the news doesn't get much coverage in the paper or here on the Range. In an attempt to create slightly more balance, here is a YouTube video of the Clippers' Blake Griffin jumping very high last night. Look for the next post in this series in a few weeks or so.

Merry Christmas from a Dutch ad agency called CAKE.

UPDATED with playlist and download at bottom of post

At least one Santa had a skewed version of the Christmas spirit when he pulled out a gun to rob a Rhode Island yacht club last week.

Guess he felt it better to receive than to give.

• Illustration Ryn Gargulinski
• Happy holiday javelina

That story and more are up this week on Rynski’s Shattered Reality radio show, hosted by Ryn Gargulinski, on Party934.com and FM 94.9 in Hudson Valley, N.Y.

Next show is Wednesday, Dec. 22 (today!) and every Wednesday online at Party934.com. Showtime is 1 p.m. in Arizona, 3 p.m. EST.

Party 934 is a radio alternative for listeners sick of stations that play one song followed by 500 commercials.

Songs that mention NUMBERS are again this week’s theme as we have numerous requests left from last week that are counting on being played.

Thanks! to all who keep the song requests coming.

What: Rynski’s Shattered Reality Internet radio show
When: Every Wednesday for one hour
Time: 1 p.m. in Arizona, 3 p.m. EST
Where: www.party934.com and FM 94.9 in Hudson Valley

For those who might miss the show, please check back after the fact for the playlist and recorded download.

CALL FOR SONGS — Songs that mention WEATHER. Snowy, rainy, bright and sunshiny, you name it, we’ll try to find it and play it. Please leave suggestions in the comment section below or e-mail [email protected]

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Ryn Gargulinski, aka Rynski, is a writer, artist, performer and poet. Her radio show airs every Wednesday and her column appears every Friday. See more writing and art from RYNdustries at ryngargulinski.com and rynski.etsy.com.

Few people do "angry about everything" quite like Deadspin's Drew Magary, so when he takes on the more painful aspects of the Christmas season, just enjoy the ride:

9. Ribbons On Gifts
Say, this is a nice gift I've wrapped for my Dad. You know what would make it even nicer? If I cinched it up with surprisingly sturdy ribbon that cost a buck at CVS and makes the present 572 percent harder to open. Watch with joy as your loved ones try to slide the ribbon off the gift only to have it jussst fail to reach the corner of the gift! Then watch them mangle the corner of the gift as they try and push the shithead ribbon off for good before yelling out FUCK and going for the scissors! Look, everyone hates wrapping gifts. But that's a fact of life. But ribbons are a completely unnecessary hindrance. We don't need them. Furthermore, I have never once in life properly calibrated the amount of ribbon needed to go around the gift twice before coming back and making a pretty bow. This is why Barnes & Noble puts a sticker on your shit when they gift wrap it. Speaking of which…

10. Surcharges For Gift Wrapping
FUCK. YOU. You're lucky I even went shopping this year, retailers of America. WRAP IT UP.

It turns out that Cirque du Soleil's water-based shows in Las Vegas have upped the ante for the rest of the synchronized swimming world.

Many credit the Las Vegas shows for influencing the new direction of the sport to include more daring acrobatic moves. Using jumps, double back flips and handstands, choreographers are spicing up their swimmers’ routines with moves that have more than one coach worrying about injuries.

“Everyone wants to increase the difficulty of their routine and the ‘wow’ factor,” Mahoney said. “The more acrobatics you do, the more difficulty points you get. Now it’s not a question of how risky is the move, but how many people can you lift, or does it spin up or down?”

[...]

When Tammy McGregor coached the 2008 Olympic synchronized swimming team, she took her athletes to the Circus Center San Francisco to learn to integrate more acrobatics into their routines.

Young girls, she said, “like the risk factor and basically want to do tricks in the water.” Unlike Mahoney, she said she thought these changes were less about the newer Vegas shows and more about an evolution of the sport.

“It’s been coming since before the shows,” McGregor said. “The Russians have been really advancing the role of acrobatics in synchro. They have a swimmer who can jump 15 feet in the air.”

“It’s a contact sport now,” she added. “So they can’t ridicule us anymore.”

Jason Fried has a radical theory of working: that the office isn't a good place to do it. At TEDxMidwest, he lays out the main problems (call them the M&Ms) and offers three suggestions to make work wor

Courtesy of Derek Eads, find yourself transfixed by the vortex of awesomeness:

I probably shouldn't laugh out loud at a video of Argentinian legislator Graciela Camano slapping fellow lawmaker Carlos Kunkel in the face. I shouldn't, but I'm assuming for now that mild politician-on-politician assault is going to still humor me for awhile.

Arizona Theatre Company is bringing the Second City traveling troupe to Arizona again for a show called Sex and the Second City: Version 2.0, which is in itself not a bad thing. I heard decent things about their previous show, and while this show has a troublesome title, it could be funny, right?

You wouldn't get that idea from the press release, however. ATC's artistic director does a great job of bringing quality productions to town, but he probably should leave the humor to the experts.

"The other day, I opened a door at the theatre and I swear I could still hear the last vestiges of laughter echoing around from The Second City show at ATC last spring," said Artistic Director David Ira Goldstein. "You would think that after we provided them with a comedy bonanza last time they visited, The Second City folks would leave Arizona alone. But, apparently they feel that they struck comedy gold here in the Grand Canyon State and this time they are aiming straight for our private parts in a very public forum. New York may have 'The Rent Is Too Damn High Party,' but it looks like Arizona has started 'This Place Is Too Damn Funny Party.' And the party gets underway next March."

Sigh.

You can mark your calendar to see Sex and the Second City: Version 2.0 at the Temple of Music and Art on March 23-27, 2011.