I hate Santa Claus. There, I said it. Hopefully, I'm not the first person in your life who has said this. Although, if I am, it wouldn't surprise me... I mean, that fat, lazy out-sourcer also known as The Jolly Old Elf has been trying to ruin my life for nearly 7 years now. And no, this has nothing to do with how he has shifted the focus of the season away from religious things and onto material things.
Most people view Santa as a good guy. The kind of good guy who brings free gifts for everybody (who doesn't love that?), and all he asks for in return is that you make your way off of the naughty list and onto the nice list (just what parents want, right?). I mean, he's sort of like your awesome uncle who used to bring you a gift each time he visited your house when you were young. Although, from your parent's perspective, the awesome uncle didn't require (or even ask!) that you were on his nice list, he brought you a gift no matter what. This quality made the uncle even more awesome in your eyes, but your parents wished he would have a more Santa-like positive influence on your behavior. Big point in favor of Santa over your awesome uncle (at least from your parents' perspective). But what you didn't know as a kid was that your awesome uncle was actually an unemployable drunk who stole your gifts from the dollar store's half-off clearance bin (an example your parents wished for years behind your back that you would never emulate).
In comparison, Santa is an upstanding member of society who employs lots of really short overly specialized factory workers with pointed ears and weird shoes who would have trouble finding work in most factories today. So not only does Santa bring great gifts, he has a positive influence by only bringing gifts to kids on the nice list, and he is a stalwart employer of the unemployable. Sure, he likes to eat lots of cookies and milk on one night per year, but who doesn't like to throw caution to wind every once in a while and eat well over 600 billion calories in one night? (Ok, that's a rough guess based on 6 billion people in the world, each giving Santa one, 100-calorie cookie each on Christmas Eve).
Sounds like a great deal, doesn't it? Be a good kid throughout the year, leave out a few cookies and some milk, and you get some sweet presents on Christmas morning! Woo hoo!
Well, I hate to be the one to tell you the truth about Santa (ok, maybe I don't hate telling the truth... actually I love it). But from a parent's perspective, Santa Claus is one of the worst made-up people out there, including the really bad villains like Batman's Joker and The Wolf who ate the three little pigs (that's how that story ended, right?). Let me tell you why.
Reason #1. Santa Claus makes us parents look bad in our kids' eyes. He steals all the credit that we so rightfully deserve. Every year, my kids completely forget within 3 seconds who gave them which gift. And they ALWAYS come away believing that EVERY SINGLE good present came from Santa and that the crappier gifts came from us parents (like the underwear/socks/etc). A couple of years ago, my wife and I tried an experiment - we made it a point that all the crappier gifts came with Santa tags on them and all of the fun gifts came with "From: Mom & Dad" tags on them. Well, sure enough, our kids were skyping with their grandparents on Christmas afternoon, and they kept saying that "Santa gave me ____ (fill in the blank with awesome, fun gift)" and "Oh, and I also got some new underwear from my parents." WHAT?!?!?! What more can we do to get some credit around here?!
As if that wasn't enough, one year we left a dustbuster (talk about a crappy gift for a kid...) unwrapped in front of the tree, a clear indication that it came from Santa. Our kids see the dustbuster on Christmas morning (I mean, it's front and center), and we tell them, "Hey, look at that strange gift from Santa... a dustbuster?" Don't worry though, our kids came through, making Santa look like a hero once again - our oldest daughter (who was too old to believe in Santa at the time, anyhow) screams in her most excited and pure Christmas joy voice: "OOOOOOHHHH, A DUSTBUSTER! JUST WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED!" My wife and I nearly both had heart attacks at the same moment. What a little punk! But she wasn't to blame... Santa is to blame!
We need to get rid of this guy. He's taking all of our "good parent" credit away. There aren't many days during the year that we nearly go bankrupt buying awesome gifts for our kids... and we don't even get any credit for it? Who came up with this crap situation anyway? We came up with all of the awesome gift ideas for these kids, we put up with their not-quite-so nice behavior all year, we paid for all of these awesome gifts, and this is the repayment that we get? This made-up lazy turd somehow is idolized by our kids for being such a great guy, when he did absolutely nothing. I'm ready for the whole Santa Claus charade to end.
Reason #2. I've heard for as long as I can remember that Santa Claus brings presents to good girls and boys. But I happen to know a lot parents with some bad apples for kids. And guess what? Not a single one of them doesn't get a fair load of presents for Christmas. What is going on? The only coal my mean older brother ever got was candy coal in the otherwise-stuffed stocking next to his 8 quadrillion presents. It seemed like he actually got more presents during his really bad years. What is going on here? There's clearly no accountability in this situation, and I'm sick of it. What are we teaching our kids? They can behave like demons all year and Santa doesn't actually follow through on his promises... in fact, he actually turns out to be a little more like your awesome uncle in this scenario (no good behavior required to receive good gifts). I can tell you that if it's a deal between my child and me, and my child doesn't hold up their end of the bargain, then I don't hold up my end... so why should Santa? What is his example teaching our kids about real life? That you can behave like a jerk all year and still get whatever you write in a stupid letter to some made-up old guy and mail to a fake address using a real stamp that your parents paid real money for. It's just a bad deal all around on this one.
Reason #3. This one's a bit nit-picky, I'll be honest. But Santa Claus only works one day a year, and he can't find some time to do a little exercise? I mean, even exercising just 15 minutes per day (if he was eating a somewhat reasonable diet), he would more than burn off those 600 billion calories from the one night a year that he works. What kind of health example is this guy? I can tell you that if I only worked one day per year, I'd look like Arnold (or his genetically limited weird-looking younger brother).
I'm sure there are other reasons that people hate Santa Claus, but we need to be more vocal about this topic in our society until this stupid old fart just goes away. We need to rise up and take down Santa Claus! We must stop this bad influence on our kids. It will benefit all of us in the long run, I guarantee it.
