Ho-Ho-Ho

As is prone to happen to me, I had a random thought the other day. As is also prone to me, I'm now going to expound on that random thought, despite the fact that there are perhaps better things to do with my time. The thought was this;

Who is this Santa Claus guy anyway?

I was in the grocery store when the thought hit me, assaulted even there on every direction by candycane striped objects, pervasive holiday music, and reindeer shaped turkey loafs. And of course Santa, in every guise imaginable and on the covers of magazines, bags of candy, and half life-sized cardboard cut outs. Just let it be known, my gayness does not approve of the last item as a decorative accessory, please do not buy them.

Finding the history of the venerable Mr. Claus is easy enough, just go here. My concern was more a philosophical one, with an emphasis on Concern.

It has been suggested that Santa is in fact omniscient. He knows things he should not be able to know. He was not there when you were nice or when you were naughty, or in those cases when you were both nice AND naughty at the same time (the doors were locked, the bedroom door was closed, and the lights were on, I'm pretty sure there was no one else in the room, and the video camera does not count.) How does he KNOW about your niceness or naughtiness? Omniscience is the only answer as to how he could know these things. This worries me, as I'm not so keen on people spying on me, especially fat old white men, who as a group have a history of making bad judgments with such information. But, his knowledge seems to have limitations. He only seems to have knowledge of some vague moral judgment about your behavior, it is not even clear that he knows what you DID to be nice or naughty. It also doesn't seem to include knowledge about non nice/naughty things, like the name of the book I am currently reading or what I had for dinner last night, unless I had Leg of Neighbor, which I think would go in the naughty category.

So, omniscient, no. A bit overly judgmental? It would seem so, yes.

The word omniscient always brings to mind the word omnipotent, which always brings to my mind the word impotent, and I find the thought of an omnipotent impotent Santa amusing, and I giggle.

But I digress.

Is he omnipotent? Hardly. He makes toys and flies them around to everyone in the world in one night. Impressive, without a doubt, but hardly all powerful. If he was omnipotent I don't think he'd bother with all the sleigh and reindeer crap, he could just will the presents to appear at your house without all the fuss of strapping the unruly creatures in or dealing with that drunk, Rudolph (perpetually red nose. Case closed). Speaking of Rudolph, an omnipotent Santa would hardly have had to worry so much about the damn fog.

To get even heavier, is Santa some fourth incarnation of God? God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost.... and Santa? He seems to be related to the others in his supposed spirit of giving and by calendar date. He seems to add a new festive element to them all, his addition to the Trinity could be a welcome one to the otherwise stogdy and musty old world three-some. Would that make it a Quadrinity? Dictionary.com says it would be "Quaternity", which I don't like nearly as much as either Quadrinity or Trinity, so I think we should abandon the God-As-Four-Guys theory. Plus the obvious animosity between Jesus and Santa shown to exist in numerous episodes of South Park is evidence enough for me of their mutually shared and understandable hatred for one another.

Santa. S-A-N-T-A. Take the T and switch it with the N. Now switch the last A with the N. S-A-T-A-N. Hmmm, there may be something here. Is Santa in fact just an anagram for the Dark Lord himself? Is he really just here to subvert the minds of our beloved children, turning them all to a life of evil sin? Greed perhaps? Gluttony maybe? Are the trampling of people in the aisles of Wall Mart and Target all part of his evil plan to spread his nefarious ways amongst us? While I find conspiracy theories entertaining for a short while, I bore of them quickly. They usually smack of a cop-out, and the idea of Satan is the biggest cop-out of them all. So let the idea of Santa-as-Satan go the way of the government Black Helicopters and the De Vinci Code, and let's move on to better things.

Maybe Santa is a hot daddy bear, or more accurately a hot daddy polar bear. This thought would make many a man I know weak in the knees, but not so much for me. I like them a little younger and a little trimmer. I have no need for a gym-god body, but he just looks unhealthy. But, he seems to keep truckin' along though, without fear of heart attack or stroke, so I guess it's working for him. And there's that whole Mrs. Claus thing.... maybe she's just a beard, but I doubt it. Then again, maybe he has a thing for short guys... that would explain the elves... Bah, whatever, or whoever, he does in his spare time is no concern of mine. Just as long as he stays away from the Reindeer, that's just kind of gross.

Is Santa a figment of our imaginations? And here I had to pause, half way across the parking structure, grocery bags in hand. Could it be that Santa is in fact only a farcical tale about a fat man in a red suit here to reward or punish my behavior by some system of ambiguous moral evaluation? Could it be that he is but a tool to make me spend more money on things that people don't need and on items that will go out of style at 12:01 A.M on Dec. 26th? Could it all just be a ploy to socialize me and everyone else in the world into a Judeo-Christian Capitalistic Consumer Frenzied Automaton? Do I really want to be this bitter and jaded at 27 years old??

Bitter and jaded is bad, I don't care to be those things. So Santa can be who ever the hell he wants, or what other people want him to be, I just love having a time of year to give stuff to the people I love, stuff of my choosing or making (Santa's not the only one with a workshop damnit!), and all the crassness and ridiculousness of this holiday season can just be an annoying buzz in the background, like a mosquito in the other room.

So Happy Holidays!! (fuck you Bill O-Reilly, you ain't getting a Chrissymas greeting out of me, I intend to include ALL people this season!), I hope you all get everything you want and desire this year. Ho Ho Ho!