TO HELL WITH SATAN, OOPS - I MEAN SANTA

By Allen Van Hoosier

Now that Xmas is over it is safe to discuss this topic: the depravity that is Santa Claus. I will refrain from using the word “Christmas” because as we all know as it is supposed to be Christ's birthday we celebrate, two things enter my mind;

1. He was born in August

2. We celebrate shopping

That notwithstanding, I will dive into what spawned my brain’s hamster (not gerbil) thinking about this issue.My seven-year-old daughter asked me on January 5th about one of the girls in her class. This girl – who I have met before and is in every sense of the word a sweetheart, is shall we say – for lack of a better word, “poor.”And for the purpose of this blog entry, we call her “Carol.” Sorry – I refuse to refer to her in one of those sickening curtsey names.It’s ok to say that word. Let’s not be to PC now. It’s a fact of life. Not everyone lives in the suburbs and drives a Lexus SUV.

The girl in question, and I will change the name of her for privacy sake, is a sweetheart of a child. My daughter even told me that she got an award during the fall session for being the “most polite child” in her class.So my daughter asked me the other day, “Dad – I got a lot of stuff from Santa this Christmas. Why?”I said simply, “Because dear you were a little good girl, and Santa – like the song says, knows when you’ve been bad or good.”“OK,” she said, “But Carol is the nicest person in our class, and she only got a shirt from Santa.”

I was floored. Not only at the insight of my child but for the fact that I had never even thought about it from this angle before and an innocent, non-jaded child got it, and I didn’t.
But DAMN; it hit me. “He knows when you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness’ sake.”
My seven-year-old is rotten, as all seven-year-olds are, but she also has her moments of true heart-warming action, as all seven-year-olds do. And here she is calling the legend’s bluff.

I already knew that our Santa Claus society was mired in hypocrisy. We raise kids to believe in three bigger-then-life icons growing up – Easter Bunny, Jesus Christ, and Santa Claus, and when they mature, we also expect them to turn around and drop the belief in two, and retain the belief in one. No wonder children have ADHD, OCD, and other nameless acronyms. But I could hear in my daughter’s tone that not only was she starting to end (forgive the oxymoron) her belief in Kris Kringle, what feelings she had left for him were slightly hostile. What kind of jolly old soul would give one person who goes from fighting with her brother, fist-fighting with her little sister (the little sister usually starts it and is a south-paw fighter) to being nice, and thus repeats the cycle over and over and over again, and winds up getting clothes, electronics, doll-houses, etc, etc, from Santa Claus, and her friend is the sweetest person she knows, and only gets a shirt?

I could see this confused her greatly. My reply to her, being brutally honest with her, and wanting her to see the world through honest eyes “kept it real.”

“Sweetheart,” I said. “It’s like this. I’m sorry to say it but it’s the truth – Santa, you see… well … um….he doesn’t ex...….hmmmm….. uh………
“He doesn’t like poor people. And besides – How can you park 3 tons of reindeer on a mobile home rooftop and NOT cave it in? Those things don’t even have chimneys!”

I’m still sleeping on the couch.