How remarkable is the irony of the always offended left
getting their collective knickers in a bunch over Megan Kelly’s remark that
Santa Clause is a white man? Given this
phony controversy let’s turn this into an opportunity to expose them for the ignorant
hypocrites that they are.
Firstly, the left will always leap at any opportunity to
condemn Christmas as having become an over commercialized excuse for rampant
capitalism devoid of the “true spirit” of the celebration of Christ’s
birth. Santa Clause is of course the convenient
symbol of this commercialization. They
then of course attach their favorite political vehicle to this argument, guilt
,or more specifically “white guilt”. We
should all be ashamed of not only our skin color, but when it comes to
Christmas, we should be ashamed of our prosperity as well, (as diminished as that may have become
by the ongoing economic ineptitudes of political class in general).
So then if we are to accept the arguments of Santa Clause
being symbolic of the “over commercialization” of Christmas and the absence of
the “true spirit” of the Holiday, how then can we reject the origins of Santa
Clause, a term and legend that is an admixture of, at the very least, Greek,
Bohemian and Dutch Origins?
Saint Nickolas of Bari was a Greek Bishop of the 4th
Century in Anatolia who traditionally went out on Christmas Eve and left coins
of the shoes of children and the poor who left them on their doorsteps for him. Legend has it that in order to save a poor
family from the humiliation of not being able to marry off their three
daughters for the lack of a dowry, he dropped a purse full of gold coins down
the chimney of their house.
Saint Nicolas of Bari
These traditions became mixed with the warm and traditional
fur lined clothing of the 10th Century Duke Wenceslaus the First of Bohemia who was
known to venture out into the deep snow on Saint Steven’s Day (the second day
of Christmas) to leave alms for the poor.
In the mid 1850’s John Mason Neale and Thomas Helmore turned his legend
of charity into the Christmas Carol we know today.
The Good King
The modern name Santa Clause comes from the Dutch
transliteration of Saint Nicolas, “SinterKlass”, which became further changed
into Santa Clause as the legends moved across the North Sea to the British
Isles. Ironically in the Dutch traditions of "SinterKlass" he is often portrayed with his helper "Black Pete". Mentioning such political incorrectness would no doubt send the talking heads of MSNBC exploding in fits of racial apoplexy. (We can only hope!)
SinterKlass and Black Pete
So then if we are to return to the spirit of the holiday as
it inspired pious men and their good works it pretty hard to ignore their
cultural origins and to fail to recognize that the Greeks, the Bohemians and
later the Dutch and the Brits were all “white Europeans”. As silly and at the same time iconic as Santa sharing a Coke with
a polar Bear is, it is a happy and warm portrayal of the season. I just don’t think it would be quite the same with “Saint
Skittles”, Trayvon Martin, flipping off the world and showing us his "grill" while sharing an Arizona watermelon
flavored ice tea with a grizzly bear.
Santa & Friend
Setting such realities aside the spirit of
Christmas should transcend race, cultural and political differences. I can’t speak for all Christians but I’d like to think that
a great majority of them, of whatever race, color or culture, would be more than happy if the left would just let us
celebrate our savior’s birth in our own ways and leave their stinking political
indignation out of it, if only just for a few weeks out of the long year.
