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(Part 5)
by: Wes
But let us not stray too far from our point, which has been aptly made and follows thusly: Because Santa Claus is so much more widely associated with the Christmas holiday than Christ himself -- despite the protests of sundry good and rather annoying Christians that the holiday is, or should be, all about our supposed Lord and Savior and his miraculous virgin birth -- it makes sense to say that Santa Claus, in effect, has more to do with Christmas than Jesus Christ. It may not originally have been that way, but now it certainly is! Santa Claus is the great usurper. But if Santa Claus possesses the power to steal Jesus's thunder and glory even on the very anniversary of his birth, does it not make sense to say that Santa Claus is even more powerful than Jesus? And if Jesus is, for all practical purposes, God himself, does it not stand to reason that the supernatural and metaphysical might of the great sleigh-riding, reindeer-driving, milk-guzzling, cookie-munching Santa Claus actually surpasses that of the Creator deity? It seems unbelievable, to be sure, but the logic in those successive deductions certainly is not without its merits. Therefore, let us assume the truth of the conclusion -- that Santa Claus is, in fact, more powerful than the almighty God. AMAZING!
And yet, perhaps this explains why so many people do not believe in Santa Claus, just as so many people do not believe in God? Sure, they believe in these figures when they are young -- namely because they are conditioned to do so -- but when they get older, and can think for themselves, and become more familiar with the dull and mundane ways of this world, which can, at times, be interesting, but even then never aspire to the level of the epic and legendary tales of myth, these people come to realize that such fantastic and far-fetched beings could not possibly exist, at least not in the manner in which we've painted them, and so they come to disbelieve in them. If Santa Claus were believed to be some bum on the corner with a scraggly white beard and a broken glass beer bottle and a foul jumpsuit stained dark red with the blood of the people he'd murdered and mugged over countless years of drifting in and out of the alleyways, people might be more inclined to believe in him, even though this is a rather fanciful description as well. What is the difference here, you ask? Well, simply that people are more likely to believe in bad things than good things -- they'll believe in a serial murderer with a strange modus operandi and even powers that border on supernatural, but a legendary good person with similar abilities will never exist long in the realm of things believed by the masses, though such a figure may live on indefinitely in the people's hearts. Perhaps this is because, like Diogenes, people's experiences have lead them to believe that honest and good people are truly a rarity, whereas vicious, dishonest, and untrustworthy bastards can easily be found at any time and place one desires, in which case it makes perfect sense that people would disbelieve in the reality of -- or even the possibility of the existence of -- a fantastic hero, whereas they readily accept the idea and reality of monsters.
And perhaps this is why the vast majority of those who believe in God do not really believe that the deity is, as they say, Love personified, but instead believe that God is, in large part, a fanatical super-powered beast that demands unwavering loyalty and obedience from his followers -- though they believe that they are allowed slip-ups, so long as they sincerely repent (as if it were possible to sincerely repent when one's reasons for doing so are largely to avoid punishment at the deity's mighty, depraved hands, assuming the deity has hands at all) -- and will otherwise cast them into a flaming pit filled with a bunch of red devils in which the lot of them will BURN BABY BURN in torturous agony for all of eternity without a single moment's respite. On the other hand, many disbelieve in Santa Claus because -- despite various demonic characterizations of the exalted figure and the inescapable fact that the winter holiday season, despite supposedly being about good will towards one's fellow man, often produces more ill will and bad blood and stress and greed and utter chaos than not, and furthermore it must be noted that merely shifting the position of a single letter in "Santa" produces the title of the great and vicious ruler of Hell and that most ancient adversary of God, "Satan" -- Santa is believed to be, on the whole, a very good being of great and magical powers, and, owing to the reasons previously set forth, the existence of such a figure is naturally found to be utterly unbelievable by the vast majority of the populace.
Take a moment, however, to consider the possibility that Santa Claus does, in fact, exist. Moreover, suppose that the actual Santa is not the cuddly, charitable fat man with a sweet tooth whom we all know and love, except for when he appears seated in the center of the mall and misuses his influential position to fondle the undeveloped chests of young girls and casually slips a mittened hand underneath their skirts as if innocently resting his hand on their thighs, when really his hand goes a little further and tugs playfully at elastic waistbands -- but no, no, he mustn't go any further, for that would endanger his position, and, besides, the faux North Pole in its indoor mall location is far too public for what should be a private and intimate affair. The teasing will have to suffice. No, when a pedophile dons the guise of that kind symbol of Christmas, we look down upon Santa Claus, even as he appears in our ideal depiction of him, for, somehow, we find him to be at fault for allowing those who would commit crimes in his image to do so, just as we tend to fault God (even when we do not believe in him) for supposedly authoring a book that has been used so effectively by so many persons towards so many wicked ends. And if the real Santa were not the kind, jolly old fat bastard whom we believe him to be, would he not take offense at our faulting him for the actions of this pedophile who takes his name and appearance, assuming that the real Saint Nick is not a pedophile and derives no pleasure from this ignoble association? After all, if the true Santa Claus is a bastard -- say, like popular depictions of Satan -- it would make perfect sense if he were absolutely delighted that people believed him to be responsible for the placement of these pedophiles in locations where they would have ready access to mass quantities of nubile, young children champing at the invisible bit to sit on their laps and divulge their tiny hearts' desires.
But suppose that, bastard that he is, Santa Claus doesn't like that at all. And suppose that he does, in fact, possess the power that we traditionally grant him as a legendary figure -- the remarkable speed and requisite tools and flying animals necessary for a trip to every single household on the planet in one single night. Would he not kill everyone in their sleep, or at least take it upon himself to maim them very badly? Would he not, at the very least, smash something in order to leave his mark? Or perhaps set fire to the Christmas tree, such that all of the presents underneath and, eventually, the house itself, as well as others in the neighborhood -- or, if the family lives in an apartment building, the entire apartment and all other apartments in the building and even the complex itself -- burn to cinders, killing a number of people and leaving others injured and homeless on Christmas morning? We would surely expect Christmas mornings to yield much more woe and misery each year than seems to obtain in reality.
However, perhaps Santa Claus actually does commit these terrible atrocities, but, relative to the vast number of people in the world, only causes such devastating grief to touch a select few -- not because he is kind and wants to inflict as little damage as possible (in that case, why harm anyone at all?) and not because these people deserve it (who really deserves to have one's family burned, and on Christmas morning at that?), but because, being a crafty evil power, Santa Claus wishes for his existence to remain, on the whole, a secret, and so he would only indulge his more vicious impulses here and there, such that we believe his handiwork to be accidents and never for a moment suspect that jolly old Saint Nick is skipping around strangling grey-haired old ladies in their beds and stopping the hearts of buxom young expectant mothers (after fondling their milk-engorged breasts, of course). After all, as we've seen countless times in James Bond films and in other such media that holds to the now well-established tradition that a villain must divulge his or her dastardly scheme in its entirety to the captive hero for some reason or another, evil loses its power when it steps forward and boastfully takes credit for its own work. If Santa Claus is as powerful as the rumors suggest -- and is a lot less wholesome than his popular characterizations -- then it makes perfect sense that he would want his wicked deeds, and even his very existence, to go almost wholly unnoticed by the public.
On the other hand, perhaps Santa Claus is, in fact, the all-around nice guy whom most people, including those who do not really believe in him at all, believe him to be. After all, if you tried to convince anyone -- even an individual who does not believe in the red-suited, jolly old elf -- that good Saint Nick is really a murderous bastard who sets fire to people's homes and chokes children to death by shoving lumps of coal into their throats, that person would probably laugh at the idea and think you a very funny sort of lunatic, even after you went to the trouble of pointing out that, as everyone knows, and as we've noted previously, changing the location of a single letter in "Santa" results in the spelling of "Satan". For if that rationale holds, one might also consider that changing the position of one letter in the word "evil" produces "levi", but one would be hard-pressed to convince anyone that Levi Strauss jeans are pure evil, distilled, processed, and presented in wearable denim form -- and in various styles and colors at that, for, as it has been said, evil appears in many guises and wears many faces. Apparently, if that were the case, it would also have to be said that evil wears many pairs of pants. But, of course, that is not the case. Probably not, anyway -- but by accepting the changed letter argument, one would have to consider the evil of Levi's jeans to be a realistic possibility.
By similar rationale, one would have to note that changing one letter -- changing a letter from one letter to another, I mean, and not merely changing the position of a letter while leaving it the same; that is why this rationale is similar and not exact -- can have the effect of changing the word "killer" into "keller", which would seem to suggest that Helen Keller was guilty of at least one murder. And while it is true that, for all that we know, she may, in fact, have killed someone at some point in time -- she probably would've been crossed off the suspect list right away, so history would've overlooked any potential involvement that Helen Keller might have had in the unfortunate incident -- it is highly unlikely. So, as we see, using silly letter changing tricks to modify words and thereby "prove" that there is a necessary connection between the original word and the newly formed term is an imprecise way, at best, of reaching conclusions regarding the nature of one thing or another. At worst, it's a bloody stupid way of going about things. So I can't recommend it.
But this digression has gone far enough. I thought it would carry somewhere relevant -- somewhere deeper into the realm of things related to the winter holiday season, and Christmas in particular. I believed it would take us into a winter wonderland, fraught with snow leopards singing Christmas carols and pine trees decorated with white doves -- for, owing to the cold, the birds would have died and frozen solid -- and strings and strings and even more strings of colored lights and popcorn balls and grinning plastic werewolves with Santa hats. Human soldiers and alien warriors would duck behind these trees and run about, toting sleek laser rifles and leaving ridged bootprints and large three-toed indentations, respectively, in the snow as they battled for the right to place a glitter-covered cardboard star atop the largest tree in this white-blanketed sylvan expanse. As they shot at each other with their laser blasters, brilliant streams of light would fly to and fro, further increasing the beauty of the scene as viewed from a distance, and, as one approached, one would see the vibrant splashes of red and green about the snow-covered forest floor and clap with delight. This, of course, would be the spilled blood of the respective factions of combatants, for the blood of alien warriors is green. You see, even spilled blood can take on a festive appearance if one is prepared to view it as such and the timing is right. Ah, the magic of Christmas!
Let us return, then, to the blood-drinking child who refuses to believe in Santa Claus because, among other reasons, he has never seen the red-clad Samaritan. And recall that despite this blood-drinking child's advanced age -- though their minds continue to develop, persons who subsist on the blood of the living tend to remain suspended at a certain biological age, due to extenuating circumstances that vary in the case of each individual -- the blood-drinking child is still just that -- a child -- and, as such, this is quite a phenomenal case (for various reasons, of course, but here, specifically, because a child does not believe in Santa). Yes, a child who disbelieves in Santa Claus! Alert the presses! Actually, as you well know, this is not quite so surprising. Despite the overwhelming amount of proof in favor of the great Saint Nick's existence -- why, where else would all of those presents come from? -- a great many children and adults alike believe that Santa Claus is merely a story that we tell children so that Christmastime can remain magical in their youth before, as they grow older, the holiday season becomes a bothersome chore for which people must prepare by taking up second jobs and troubling over the perfect gifts for sundry persons whom they don't even like.
Others believe that Kris Kringle is merely the personification of the Christmas spirit -- giving, caring, sharing, etc. -- which is a nice idea, and would be true in more ways than one, if only Santa were found cursing out retail employees and strangling his fellow shoppers and vowing bloody vengeance because the store was sold out of a particular product and apparently wouldn't receive a new shipment of the merchandise until after Christmas. Why, if little Bobby didn't have that brand new harlot red fire engine that transformed into a thirteen inch tall robot hooker that intoned such phrases as "It's money up front, sugar" and "Swallowing will cost you extra" when one pressed a button hidden beneath her chrome-plated skirt under the tree waiting for him on the morning of December twenty-fifth, his faith in Santa Claus, as "the spirit of Christmas" or otherwise, would be shattered forever -- and imagine how much harder Santa would fight to ensure that this spiritual loss did not take place! But given that Santa Claus has never been arrested for assaulting his fellow shoppers, we can safely assume that he is not the living embodiment of the pervasive mood that marks this overly commercial holiday season. One could argue that Santa represents the ideal spirit of Christmas -- as opposed to the actual spirit of the holiday in practice -- but even the most convincing argument to this effect would be wrong, because Santa Claus is not a mere idea or concept associated with this winter gift-giving ritual. No, Virginia, Santa Claus is real.
Of course, given the fact that Santa Claus is real, the blood-drinking child's reason for disbelieving in him -- while still, as the child himself noted, not qualifying as an entirely solid reason for not believing in jolly old Saint Nick -- makes a bit more sense and can be granted a bit more legitimacy. Keep in mind that, as we have noted, the blood-drinking child, despite his youthful appearance, is in possession of a greater number of years than one would expect -- in fact, the child had, at that time, lived longer than even some adults, which is to say that the child was older than the age of eighteen (but younger than the age of thirty, depending upon where we start counting; if the years of life preceding his transformation into a blood-drinker were counted, he would exceed thirty and come nearly halfway to the forty year mark -- that is, if one considered thirty to be the starting point for the measure). Given that Santa Claus flies about the earth on the night before Christmas morning, delivering presents to good little boys and girls across the world, and given that the blood-drinking child had been a "little boy" for quite some time -- and, all things considered, had been quite good, for it had been more than a few years since he had last killed a hapless victim and gorged on the unfortunate individual's blood -- and given the fact that the senses of blood-drinkers are much more acute than those of ordinary people, one would expect the blood-drinking child to have, if he did not witness the fat man delivering presents with his own two eyes, at least heard Santa Claus during his annual visits.
But the truth of the matter is that Santa Claus had never visited the shadowy home of the blood-drinking child and had never delivered him a single present, whether in person or by mail, as Santa sometimes does with children who live in dangerous areas where Santa, for fear of harming anyone who would attack him without warning (as we shall see, Santa is a very powerful combatant), prefers not to alight from his sleigh. On the contrary, Santa gives the manifold areas in which blood-drinking persons dwell a wide berth, sometimes even to the neglect of ordinary children who might be living nearby -- though it must be noted that Saint Nick does not entirely forget these children and takes pains to either mail them their gifts or see that they have an extra special Christmas the following year. Santa Claus would, of course, take care of this in advance, but unlike the ordinary children of the world, whom Santa can see when they're sleeping and whose waking habits do not go unnoticed by the jolly and excessively overweight old elf, Santa has no such knowledge when it comes to blood-drinking children -- just as these blood-drinking souls (or lack thereof) cast no reflection in mirrors or other reflective surfaces, Santa Claus remains unable to get a fixed image of their activities. As such, he has no idea whether they've been good or bad, and therefore, as he cannot properly judge their yearlong conduct to see what kind of reward it merits, he cannot give them the appropriate holiday recompense. But that is not why he avoids their homes and the surrounding areas like the plague. Nor is it because he fears them -- though it must be said that on several known occasions the great Saint Nick has been attacked by families of blood-drinkers after dropping down their chimneys and has been forced to pull a wooden stake out of his bag of toys and slay the lot of them. After all, as he cannot properly assess their conduct -- and, indeed, he can only sense the presence of a blood-drinker when he comes within several miles of its location -- he has no way of knowing whether the blood-drinkers waiting near the fireplace are friendly or intend to murder him and feast on his thick, sugary, Christmas-powered elven blood.
...read on to Part 6!
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