Every year at this time the right wing pundits of the world tell us that there’s a War on Christmas, waged by liberal extremists who want to deny us our traditions, strip our cultures of our faith-based customs, and rob our children of a little winter magic.
It’s been a war of words for the most part, with people now saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” to make allowances for other faiths that also celebrate holidays at this time of year.
But sometimes the War on Christmas spills out onto main street, like when public buildings are forced to remove displays like manger scenes and Christmas trees, and anything that smacks of the holiday’s Christian roots. Even Santa Claus is not as welcome as he used to be, despite the fact he has as much to do with the true origins of Christmas as the Easter Bunny has to do with the resurrection.
This year Sydney, Australia even advised its Santa Clauses to consider an alternative to “Ho Ho Ho” because the word “Ho” could be seen as offensive to women. Naturally it turned into the joke of the week for talk show hosts everywhere and the suggestion was quietly withdrawn, but somebody was serious when they likened Santa Claus to a pimp.
I really don’t know what to make of this whole War on Christmas thing. Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is — this year Whistler decided to do away with the menorah in the village during Chanukah on the same principle we don’t have publicly sponsored manger scenes. That’s fine — nobody has the right to force their traditions down anyone’s throats, whether they’re in the majority or not.
And besides, Santa can take care of himself.
Remember, this is the guy who “sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake.”
With awesome powers of prescience, he also knows if you’ve been naughty or nice every year. And, like evildoers Dick Nixon and Dick Cheney, he’s keeping a list.
When you think about it, Santa Claus is a bit like Tony Soprano in a red felt suit. Nobody messes with the Claus.
To start with, he has a brigade of look-a-likes in every city of the world, served by an army of elves that are fanatically devoted to the cause. He has a fortress in the North Pole that cannot be located on the map, which would make his closest neighbour Superman — and there’s really no contest who would win that fight. The Man Of Steel may be made of steel, while Santa jiggles like a bowl-full of jelly, but there isn’t a superhero alive that can lay a finger on the fat man.
Every year scientists attempt to explain how Santa Claus does it, bending the very laws of physics as he circumnavigates the globe.
While Superman may be faster than a speeding bullet, Santa Claus has to move so fast to cover the globe that by all rights he should be vaporized by wind resistance or torn to pieces by the earth’s gravitational forces.
To visit every child in the world, with an estimated 31 hours of darkness, Santa has to visit more than 800 houses every second. That might explain where all those cookies go — working at that intensity would burn more than 20 billion calories, or enough to feed 13 million people for a day. Santa’s top speed has also been calculated at more than 650 miles a second, while the average bullet goes about 650 miles per hour.
This year a group of Norwegian physicists did some research and determined that Santa must be wrapped in an ion shield of charged particles, held together by a magnetic field that surrounds his reindeer and sleigh. That allows him to shed off the tremendous amount of heat he generates as he flies through the air.
As for how he carries so many presents, the scientists theorize that Santa may also have several toy factories and storage depots in low orbit around the world that he can visit more quickly than his shop at the North Pole. Meteor showers, which are common around Christmas, could really just be Santa making back and forth trips through the ionosphere.
Although the science is theoretical, the physicists also suspect that Santa may exist in 11 different dimensions of space and time simultaneously, although string theory suggests he could visit up to 26 dimensions en route to your roof on Christmas Eve. He doesn’t slide up and down your chimney as many believe, but creates his own worm hole.
Despite this compelling study by the Research Council of Norway, there are still those people who believe that Santa Claus is not a real entity. That would mean that Santa is actually a sentient spirit that compels us to give gifts and encourages good behaviour, which is almost as awesome as an ion-shielded super sled. Remember how the Grinch could steal the Who’s presents and decorations, but in the end he couldn’t take their Christmas spirit away? That’s power.
Whatever you believe — quantum superhero or omnipresent spirit — Santa Claus is not going away because your office didn’t have a Christmas tree this year. Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays.
