How exactly do you “Save Christmas”?

According to the multitude of Christmas themed cartoon specials I have been watching lately “Saving Christmas” seems to be all the rage nowadays.  And while I am not entirely certain what exactly “Saving Christmas” fully entails, it mostly seems to revolve around helping Santa Claus overcome some difficulty (generally meteorological in nature but often created by some right thinking adversary who sees the sloth and indolence and dionysian display that Santa Claus’ Christmas dole encourages) in order for him to get his gifts to children by Christmas morning. 

Of course if this is all “Saving Christmas” means then I must throw my full support behind the theory of Christmas Permanence put forth by the honorable Dr. Seuss as discovered by the illustrious Grinch.  This theory was stumbled upon, as I have been informed again and again by one cartoon in particular, by this selfsame wise and far thinking Grinch when he attempted to “Keep Christmas from coming,” the apparent inverse of “Saving Christmas.”  In his failure to “steal Christmas,” as well as by the supporting evidence of the consistent presence of the date of December 25th on most calenders, it would appear that Christmas does not need “saving” because can no more be threatened than the concept of time itself.  And so the very idea of “Saving Christmas” is ridiculous, unless of course there was some threat to the very existence of our understanding of time itself.  In which case I believe a lack of Barbie dolls and BB guns would be the least of our worries.

But what if by “Save Christmas” we meant “Help Santa Claus Continue His Tradition Of Handing Out Junk”?  Could we not then imagine that the greatest threat to ”Christmas” was not a green furry fellow with a tiny heart or the bickering of two elemental brothers or even our own lack of Christmas cheer, but high school?

Consider Santa Claus as a teenager.  Santa Claus at fifteen would have had few friends and almost no chance with any girls partly due to his ”creepy” penchant of eating too many cookies and giving gifts to girls who were “nice”.  Even if it had been known that he made these judgements based on his ability to see these girls whenever they were asleep or awake, his chances with women would not have been worse, because all attraction is first based on appearance.  His short, elfin featured, already moving past baby fat into true morbid obesity, cherry cheeked and nosed, bespectacledwithwhite wispy whiskers growing in appearance, along with possessing a ridiculous and noticeable laugh, would have doomed young Santa Claus. 

True his cuddly reindeer and good cheer may have helped him a bit, but only enough to convince everyone that Santa Claus should go out with his bizarrely similar, cookie baking, female doppelganger (because as we all know people of then opposite sex who look alike should be involved romantically.)  But all of the girls would want to go out with the strapping, young, handsome, and most importantly RICH Ebenezer Scrooge.  Because as we all know, the only thing that is almost as important to having a good personality  as good looks is having wealth and the prospect of more wealth.  Never forget that those are the two most important things anyone looks for in friends, teachers, lovers, and leaders.  How could this not make Santa Claus hate mankind?  His survival IS a Christmas miracle.

In all real likelihood Santa Claus would have jettisoned his kind, gift giving ways and become a disciple of the Great Scrooge, whose jerkiness and wealth would have had all of the chicks and community leaders throwing themselves at him, convinced he had something they need.  And if that had happened, now children would know the true virtues of greed and avarice and sharp dealing and thrift and grimmness and hard work and just desserts. The kind of values that stand people in good stead in this world.  The kind of virtues that people actually reward.

Perhaps one day we will dump this “peace” and “merrymaking” and “giving” and “goodwill” on the one day we pay it lip service to it and realize how enlightened we all actually are the other 355 days out of the year. 

-Bob

PS. Don’t expect me to say “If that happened then Christmas would really need some saving.”  No self respecting disciple of Scrooge would say that.  Any ways, I would never be that poignant. 

-Bob

Share and Enjoy!: