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Sunday, December 13, 2009
An answer to a Santa Claus skeptic
posted by Rick Blue at 13h28
Yes, it may be true that recent emails were hacked showing that Santa supporters have been “cooking the data.” They have been exaggerating the Santa sightings and suppressing any evidence that implicated other causes. They also ridiculed and censored any kids who did not believe that Santa wasn’t “real.”
And some are now calling it “Santa-gate.”
It turns out that the famous “candy cane” graph that showed that sightings of Santa spiked around Dec. 24-25 were shown by skeptics to be offset by the activity of dad and mom in ToysRUs and Futureshop. But this is habitually ignored by Santa supporters.
And the fact that Santa sightings have levelled off and even gone down in the last 10 years is also overlooked. This has brought about charges from skeptics that Santa is more of a belief than an actual fact.
Skeptics have also charged that because naughty children will get less from Santa than nice children, that the idea of Santa Claus is just a convenient way for parents to keep their children in line.
“Outrageous!” say the Santa Claus World Protection Society.
Even so, this accusation has cast doubt over the upcoming celebrations, as people all over the world gather together in a spirit of peace and good will.
Could the whole thing be a hoax? Or worse still, a fraud?
Most people feel that it doesn’t really matter if it’s true or not.
“We get a good feeling from our belief in Santa Claus and that’s the thing that is really important,” said a spokesperson for the Reindeer League.
But with so much money spent each year on Christmas celebrations and forced merriment, isn’t the persistent treatment of Santa Claus as a fact a source of guilt and shame for those who cannot afford Christmas and a glaring contradiction of the idea of truth and accuracy in the media?
In his new documentary, “Bah, Humbug!” comedian Ebenezer Moore exposes the darker side of Christmas. He shows how a man is far more likely to get away with drinking too much eggnog and kissing other people’s wives if he is dressed in a Santa suit. (In fact, Stickler claims that the whole mistletoe concept was created in 1956 by Sam McDonald at a Christmas party in his Dorval home as a devious excuse to kiss a particularly attractive cousin.)
Naomi Pine, leader of the far left organization Body Odour is Good, claims Christmas is just a capitalist plot to brainwash the masses into spending everything they have saved that year on goods that they do not really need. But, in a seeming contradiction, that same group has stepped up its efforts to unionize the Elves who they claim are working in sub-human conditions for the same Santa Claus they deny.
The truth is, as any kid will tell you, the ultimate proof is in the presents. And whether or not it was Santa who actually delivered them doesn’t really matter. So even if you do harbour some doubt, it is better to pretend that you don't.
And as for the adults, whether we believe that every time we hear a bell ring it means an angel gets his wings, or whether we believe in the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, most of us do eventually get caught up in the Christmas spirit and it does, in spite of ourselves, make us feel good.
And that, after all, is what SC, or Santa Claus, really is all about.