eschew

Daily Telegraphの記事です。へぇ〜そうなんだと思いました。太字の箇所は何を言及しているのでしょうか。Enter Othelloを期待します。（UG）

Christmas 2012: truly a season of plenty
New figures show that more people die during the festive period than at any other time, says the Telegraph obituaries editor

“You better watch out, 
You better not cry, 
Better not pout, 
I’m telling you why: 
Santa Claus is coming to town…”

You will have seen Mariah Carey perform it, or Bruce Springsteen, or any one of many, many others. They always look so jaunty, sporting their red hats with faux-fur white piping. And they are right. We had better watch out. But, take it from me, it’s not Santa Claus we should be worried about.

For whose bony hand is that resting on the sacks in the back of the sleigh? Which gaunt figure has eschewed traditional Christmas costume for a long black cowl? Is that a scythe I can see peeping out among the presents?

Yes, I’m afraid I can now reveal that it is official: Christmas is bad for you. Fatal, in fact – so lethal that it ought to come dressed not in fancy wrapping paper but in plain packaging adorned only by a health warning printed in 40-point type.

Of course, we all love its special routines and rites of passage: the widening eyes of infants under the tree; the extended family rubbing their bellies after lunch; the Queen’s speech. But we don’t tend to focus on the more macabre moments under the mistletoe: a bit of the Bond film and then, perhaps, a little spot of death.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/9696360/Christmas-2012-truly-a-season-of-plenty.html