The End of Santa Claus
Interview with Santa Claus, December 24, 2023
Me: First, I want to start off by telling you that I think you did a wonderful job, and I don’t think you deserved this.
SC: Thanks. It feels strange to be sitting here in Restaurant Nansen (in the city closest to the North Pole) instead of delivering presents.
Me: So, let’s talk about how you lost your job.
SC: I think it started with an article in Journal of Clinical Psychology about a syndrome called “Intermittent explosive disorder."
Me: What is it?
SC: I gather it’s a disease characterized by temper tantrums, shouting, heated arguments, slapping or property damage. IED is a mental health condition which requires therapies and medications for treatment.
Me: I don’t see what on earth that has to do with you?
SC: I didn’t either, nor did a lot of people until the criticism of Christmas songs started. Santa Baby supposedly portrayed women as "scheming gold diggers."It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas was telling kids to remain in their assigned gender where girls should want dolls and boys should want guns. They even banned Baby it’s Cold Outside. But when they latched onto Santa Claus is Coming to Town, that really set things off.
Me: I’m starting to get it. That’s when they sang about your list, right.
SC: I make lists every year about who’s naughty and who’s nice, who’s bad and who’s good. It was evidence-based, I even checked it twice. Before you ask, no, it wasn’t peer reviewed and I don’t publish my data for replication.
But articles started to appear in the Journal of Public Health and Lancet about how I was discriminating against children who have IED. In fact, any kid who behaves badly – pouting, crying, throwing temper tantrums could be doing it because they have IED.
Me: I read that there were even animal studies…
SC: Yes, scientists had megaphones going 20 hours a day telling the test rats they were bad and denying them treats while the control rats slept peacefully and were given treats in front of the test rats. Not surprisingly, the test rats behaved badly. Eventually some of the rats got cancer which triggered IARC to find that Santa’s Christmas program was “a probable human carcinogen,” I was supposed to put a California Prop 65 warning on my sleigh.
Me: That’s when the court trials started, right.
SC: Yes. They started in California and rapidly went to New York, New Jersey and Georgia. There were TV ads saying, “You may be entitled to compensation.” I lost over and over again in court, but it took a while before the plaintiff attorneys found out that, while I have a huge North Pole facility, I never have had any money.
Me: But why did you lose your job?
SC: I didn’t lose it, I quit because I couldn’t take it. The media jumped on the “Kick St. Nick” and “the Grinch was right” bandwagon and said, not only was I causing illness, I was engaging in hate speech against ill people. Some groups said that a white male should be replaced by a gay, transgender person. Others said I was creepy, knowing when kids were asleep. Finally, they called me a Capitalist Pig for owning underage slaves (elves).
Me: What happened to the elves?
SC: They are employed in the new U.S. Federal Gifts Agency (FGA). They give gifts to every child every year although the size of the gift is determined by race, gender, disability, migrant status, LGBTQIA2S+, women and girls - you know.
Me: You seem sad and I miss the old Jolly St Nick. Is there anything you would like to tell the people?
SC: (Sniffling) I would. First, don’t worry about me, I’m going to lose a little weight and play some golf.
As for everyone else, no one said it better than Bill and Ted:
“Be excellent to one another.”