The Legend of Santa Claus
If you've managed to stay away from the festering cesspool that is the 24 hour news network for the last couple of weeks then you were certainly lucky enough to avoid hearing about the War on Christmas. Unless, that is, you had the pleasure of engaging your drunk neo-conservative uncle in a friendly, no holds barred discussion of politics, religion, race and gender roles all piled into one migraine inducing discussion. Well, the War on Christmas is real and it's a threat that warrants the establishment of a new branch of military called the Elfish Army, why not. It's not so much a war on Christmas as it is a Christmas war on secularism and the hope that one day you can go through the month of November without having to hear three hundred different versions of Jingle Bells on the radio, in the supermarket, at the gas station, and later on in your head while you sleep. See, Christmas has gotten huge. Much more huger than it has been before the War on Christmas "Operation As-Much-Christmas-As-Possible". Many now put up their decorations sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving, so that people will be able to show off to their relatives all of the holiday crap they have accumulated throughout their lives like the last 3 decades threw up all over their house in rapid succession. John Stewart explained it best when he said "Christmas is so massive now that it has started consuming other holidays".
I exasperatingly digress, though, because this is not about the War on Christmas. No, this is about something that requires much more attention. The War on Christmas is becoming stale. Partly because the idiots who keep talking about it just keep saying the same thing over and over again, and mostly because everyone just doesn't care anymore. However, these dumbass "reporters" have to fill up their pathetic timeslot between 3 and 4 in the afternoon and lure away Maury viewers to their desperate attempt of a network somehow. So they came up with the Genius discussion of whether or not Santa Claus is white. "What a great idea!" some moron in marketing said, "I realize that race is still a touchy subject, and secularists are going so far as to put up flags of ironic, parodical* religions in state buildings alongside Christian monuments to point out they won't let Christianity claim the nation as their own, and viewers are getting sick of us talking about stupid shit all day long, so let's start pointing out the unsolicited argument that Santa Claus is White, and the appointed Admiral on the SS Eggnog. I probably need to point out that I am not anti-Christianity, nor am I anti-religion; I lose patience with people who feel the need to include their religion in their totally unnecessary crusade of trying to prove why their people are more awesome at life.
*The internet said this was a word
Santa Claus, was of course not always named Santa Claus. He has had many names throughout the years, but it all started with a little dude named Nicholas. Nick lived in Turkey in the 3rd and 4th centuries, and his parents were pretty rich, then they both died and left him all their money. If I had to guess, they probably died of falling off the edge of the Earth, because I think that was a thing back then. Now, most kids who inherit a bunch of money would start buying a bunch of crap they don't need, like a pallet of gummy bears and diamond studded iPhones, or whatever kids waste their money on nowadays. Nicholas, however, was pretty awesome. He was raised by his uncle, and later became a priest. Eventually he became the Bishop of Myra, where he lived in Turkey. He was known to hand out treats to children, but not in the creepy, windowless van kind of way. Some say he would walk around town at night and leave coins in the shoes of poorer children, who left their shoes out at night for this very purpose. Legend has it he once, under the secretive of night, tossed in bags of gold to a house to provide the father dowries for his three daughters, so they wouldn't have to become prostitutes or slaves. He did it secretively because he was humble as shit, and didn't want the recognition. It is said that he did this on three consecutive nights. The first night he walked by the window and tossed in one bag of coins for the eldest daughter. The next night he did the same thing, for the middle daughter. At this time the father was on to him, and waited by the window so he could confront this mysterious gift giver and offer his thanks. Mister Nicky was too smart for this, though, and the last purse of gold he dropped down the Chimney. This may be how tradition eventually originated of Santa Claus squeezing down chimneys to hand out gifts without anyone seeing him. It also might mean if you leave your fireplace lit, and Santa can't get down your chimney, your daughter will probably grow up to be a prostitute.
Word gets around that Bishop Nicholas is a pretty chill guy, and he is given a celebration in which everyone feasts a wonderful feast on December 6th. This would probably still be a thing, but Pope Julian, who was around the same time as Nick, had other plans. The popetacular J-dogg decided that Pagans were having a little too smug a time celebrating the Winter Solstice, and was like "Hey I know Jesus was born way back in like, April and shit, but we're going to have a celebration for him in December anyway." So Christmas was created, conveniently during the same time as the solstice, in an effort to Proselytize the celebrations. People were probably like "I can't afford TWO feasts in December", so they just went ahead and celebrated Christmas and St. Nicholas day on December 25th, much like parents celebrate their kids birthday as part of the closest major holiday, or lump a couple relative's birthdays together, even though they are like 3 weeks apart.
Another fine point about celebrating the winter solstice, and the papal takeover of said holiday, is that one of the pagan traditions during that time was called the Yule, which has translated to current holiday standards, and I'm pretty sure Christianity has successfully established this as their own. You see, Yule was a period that spanned two months, the celebration of which occurred over 12 consecutive days. This is most likely where that awful repetitive song '12 Days of Christmas' came from (see! It should be '12 days of Yulening around getting drunk on pagan spirits') and most definitely why we start Christmas in freaking October now.
Eventually, the traditions of Saint Nicholas spread and people were like "yeah I want some free shit from this guy" so they started placing treats around the house during Christmas to lure him with a little reward. This has most likely transformed into the current tradition of leaving out milk and cookies on Christmas Eve. Currently, something around half the world (probably not but still a huge number of people) do this, and I'm pretty sure Santa is extremely diabetic now. Like, they had to outfit a few cows on the back of his sleigh that continuously pump milk into his body so he doesn't suffer from withdrawal.
As with most things popular, the traditions waned across Europe with the exception of Holland. People in Holland were like "everyone else doesn't want St. Nick to come visit them anymore which means more wooden shoes for us!" and continued on the celebrations. Dutch settlers introduced St. Nick to America for the first time, and for some weird reason the Yankees loved the Dutch after the Revolutionary War, so they exercised their Manifest Destiny and went ahead and took over this celebration, too. When the Dutch came over to New York (at that time called New Amsterdam) they called Saint Nick Sancte Claus, which was later pronounced universally as Santa Claus. I don't know why; it's not even close to Nicholas. Oh wait, I guess it is: Saint = Sancte = Santa and Nicholas = Claus somehow. ANYWAY, none other than Washington Irving, the Author of 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" first illustrated Santa Claus in a comic in 1809, the first time the legend of St. Nick was printed in the union. Some dude named Pintard, who worked for the New York Historical Society, threw a party in honor of St. Nicholas in 1810. He commissioned Alexander Anderson to paint what he thought St. Nick would look like, and he painted him as what saint's usually look like, but depositing gifts into the kid's laundry. Seriously, the stockings you put over your mantel are there because Anderson thought Santa would stuff your gifts into freshly washed stockings that were hanging out near the fire to dry off.
In 1822, a poet by the name of (who really cares at this point) Clement Moore wrote a little diddy for his family's amusement about how St. Nick was actually an elf, and delivered gifts to all the good little kids atop his sleigh powered by eight miniature reindeer (Rudolph was introduced many, many years later, probably to teach kids that if you have a weird physical blemish, everyone will eventually admire and rely on you because you probably have magical powers). Sometime after this, cartoonist Thomas Nash jumped on the Santa bandwagon and threw out some drawings that portrayed Santa living in the North Pole with a workshop. Way to relocate your operation outside the country and take away American jobs, you communist! Anyway, this is why he lives in the North Pole.
Ok, so this all comes back to the argument of what race Santa is. The answer is: IT DOESN'T FREAKING MATTER. Santa is just the result of a tradition carried through different cultures to eventually meet their partying and greedy needs at the time. He was originally Turkish, or Greek, so he probably looked a lot like Yanni. In fact, Yanni is probably a distant relative. Christmas was created to turn people away from Paganism. I'm not saying people are bad for celebrating it, it was just kind of a dick move by the pope and we should know where it came from. Christmas was not orchestrated by big business to create a cash crop of consumerism; rather consumerism was likely fueled by the tradition. That being said, the tradition was centered on the NEEDY. Saint Nicholas was a champion of the poor. He spread his wealth to those who had little. Said a different way, he took the wealth he inherited and spread it evenly to the poor. Today, this is considered socialism, communism, Marxism, and in some cases liberalism. It's not, though. This is called compassion and empathy. Not only was Saint Nicholas compassionate and empathetic, but he was humbled and didn't act for recognition. Saint Nick was altruistic, which I believe is the truest form of compassion, and is one of the most admirable qualities of a creature I can think of. As traditions endure, so should their spirit. We should all remember the purpose behind the holiday we now celebrate.
