Don‘t mess with Santa

Dec. 21, 2008

Perhaps you’ve seen the somewhat disconcerting depiction of Santa Claus as portrayed by cell phone company Palm Centro. This “new” Santa - or “Claus,” as he so proclaims himself - is a Santa that goes far beyond just sprucing up the ol’ Santa suit with some new white trim. Oh no. Claus has the newest cell phone, takes digital photos of his gift recipients as they admire their gifts, shows off his stainless steel, zero-emissions sleigh, and wears gold-framed aviator sunglasses, a leather jacket, and no Santa hat while cruising around to drop those presents off on Christmas Eve.
All of this might be a little amusing, but then we get to the visual redesign that goes along with Santa himself... er, sorry, did it again - CLAUS - and his new image. He’s a wannabe-hipster Santa. He may be old, but he also wears a fleece-lined leather jacket over his red sweater and red sneakers, and sports a fluffy hairdo reminiscent of David Hasselhoff. But most cringe-inducing is Claus’ lanky build and sloped posture as he strides into the latest Hollywood nightclub, flipping the car valet a tip (actually a miniature golden retriever) while trying to recapture his youth... or something.

SANTA EVOLUTION
For the sake of argument, let’s skip the whole process via which the traditional American Santa Claus has evolved from the pipe-smoking, long-green-robe wearing persona to the red-and-white suited, fur-trimmed-hat-wearing, black-booted Santa that we know and love today. Yes, Santa Claus’ appearance has indeed changed with time, over the course of U.S. history. Technically speaking, he’s an amalgam of St. Nicholas, Father Christmas, and a Coca-Cola-promoted Santa, and he’s been that way pretty much ever since 19th century cartoonist Thomas Nast first sketched the jolly old soul for an issue of Harper’s Weekly in 1863. But these changes have been small and gradual ones, always sticking to Santa’s core of being a portly, white-bearded, benevolent, grandfatherly-like character that brought not only gifts, but also familiarity and reliability to the holiday season, through urban growth, small-town traditions, and wartime alike.
Yet there always seems to be someone that just has to make Santa Claus “go modern” each year, whether it’s the Centro company or someone else. It’s one thing for Santa to evolve to a certain degree with the times - for instance, you can now email letters to Santa, which is good for guaranteed response as well as for the environment; and we can all have the fun of watching Santa and his reindeer circle the globe via NORAD radar. But changing Santa’s basic traditional appearance is the equivalent of serving Manwiches for Thanksgiving dinner, or searching for, say, bouncy balls or nectarines instead of Easter eggs in the spring. In the long run, it just doesn’t work.
SANTA OVERLOAD
Santa Claus as we know him today (minus the aviator shades and oh-so-groovy persona) was perhaps first Americanized by Clement Clarke Moore, whose poem, The Night Before Christmas, solidified many details of Santa and his surrounding legends, from the reindeer and chimney visits to that confident nod from Santa himself. Other accompanying traditions, such as leaving cookies out for Santa, would soon follow, to comprise the well-known holiday lore that is an American standard each December.
Well, it used to be December. Now, instead of cheerfully and diligently working away in his North Pole workshop for the months and months leading up to Christmas night, it appears that some PR person of Santa’s has deemed that he needs to make public appearances in stores nationwide as early as the weeks leading up to Halloween.
It was bad enough that Christmas cheer used to officially begin at Thanksgiving, but at least that could somewhat logically be considered “the start of the holiday season” - but Halloween?
What’s next, a Santa in surf shorts selling you BBQ potato chips on Labor Day?
Perhaps all of this just goes along with the general commercialization of Christmas itself. It’s no longer enough to save up and make or purchase a few thoughtful gifts for those you care about; now it’s about maxing out the credit cards and one-upping the neighbors to make sure you have the newest and best of everything. Making Christmas cookies for your neighbors used to be fun - until the plethora of gourmet recipes thrown at you during the holiday threw a condescending virtual glare at your simple sugar cookies with the festive sprinkles. Should you really mail your paper Christmas cards, or is an email card of a computer-voiced dancing cartoon snowman enough? Should you get plug-in lights, solar lights, LEDs - or ignore lights altogether for a truly modern, minimalist tree? Should you even get a tree? What kind - a living tree in a pot, a traditional cut-down tree, a PVC plastic tree, an inflatable tree, a rope light tree?
It’s truly a holiday overload.

SIMPLE SANTA
What Santa has stood for from the beginning are very simple things, things that can even transcend the different religions that celebrate the various holidays that occur this time of year. Benevolence, philanthropy, happiness, giving, the festivity of gifts and the special ambiance of the season - whether they’re applied to Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa - are all things that are becoming lost or minimized in the interest of bigger and better presents, fancy dinners, holiday vacation extravaganzas, and overblown marketing campaigns.
Yes, Santa has reached out his mittened hands to people of all denominations - and he’s also grown with the times as needed, as we mentioned earlier. But there are certain things that just work for Santa and the legends surrounding him. One could argue that his sleigh is unnecessary, given that we have so many roads and airplanes and FedEx services now, or that his North Pole toy factory is an outdated element, since his team of Santa’s elves couldn’t possibly keep up with today’s overpopulated demand for gifts - but then you’re arguing directly with holiday magic. And that’s what we need to recapture in the season, instead of trying to make everything about Christmas cooler and faster and more expensive and more trendy. Santa doesn’t need to change that much.
So in your holiday preparations, take a moment to stop and think. Are you merely giving in to Christmas commercialization, or are you really thinking about how to appreciate and share the holiday spirit and bring a little happiness to those around you? One thing that the classic Santa knows is what Christmas is all about - and perhaps it’s time we quit trying to improve on something - or someone - that is just fine as is. If we drag ourselves out of the mall and pay attention, he may even be able to teach us a few old-school lessons on what’s important about the entire holiday season.
And while we’re at it, let’s send “Claus” back to whatever hipster regime he arrived from, and give our good ol’ Santa Claus back his oversized red suit and hat; it’s going to be a busy Christmas, you know, and he’s going to need ‘em to stay warm.