New Yorkers Joel Krupnik and Mildred Castellanos have been drawing stares this Christmas by decking the front of their Manhattan mansion not with holly and lights but with a knife-wielding, 1,5m-tall St Nick and a tree full of decapitated Barbie dolls.
Hidden partly behind a tree, a merry old elf grasps a disembodied doll’s head with fake blood streaming from its eye sockets.
No one answered the family’s door to explain on Tuesday, but Krupnik told the New York Post it is a statement about the commercialisation and secularisation of Christmas.
”Christmas has religious origins,” he said. ”It’s in the Bible. Santa is not in the Bible. He’s not a religious symbol.”
More than a few people passing by the Krupnik and Castellanos brownstone house were a little puzzled about the message behind the massacre. There were a few signs the macabre theme is a year-round thing — the facade of the building was covered with leering gargoyles. A statue of Death, hooded and grim-looking, stood outside.
Peter Nardoza (81), of Manhattan, shook his head and chuckled.
”Sick, sick, sick,” he said. ”What kind of a world is this that we live in?”
Ronnie Santiago, a deliveryman on his route, speculated that something bad must have happened once to the homeowner at Christmas. A few spectators wondered whether the campy gore would bother children.
The family is far from the only one making an editorial comment this year on how Americans celebrate Christmas, although it may be the only one doing it by depicting Santa Claus as a killer.
Pope Benedict XVI complained this week that Christmas festivities have been ”subjected to a sort of commercial pollution”. Christian conservatives have launched campaigns to reintroduce a religious component to Christmas decorations in schools and public squares, chiding even President George Bush this year for sending out cards wishing supporters a happy ”holiday season”.
But despite the home’s gruesome exterior, some visitors got it.
Bucky Turco (31), of Manhattan, said the display captures how he feels when watching someone dressed as cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants promote products at Rockefeller Centre.
”This is brilliant,” said Turco.
Walter Garofalo, a musician from Brooklyn who wandered by wearing a black bandanna covered in skulls, was awe-struck.
”I wonder if these people would let me use this as our next album cover,” he said. ”It’s perfect!” — Sapa-AP