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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Countdown to Christmas #1: Santa Claus


Let's start with the big guy : Santa Claus. Saint Nicholaus. Sinterklaas. Sandy Claws. As Bart Simpson once reminded us, let us not forget the true meaning of Christmas: the birth of Santa.


The modern holiday season is built around a brilliant/crass fusion of old school traditions (both secular and non-secular) and modern industry-driven capitalism, and nothing personifies that more than Ol' St. Nick. Not so much a character as an archetype, he can accordingly be all things to all people: a sainted religious figure, a grim spectre dispensing switches to naughty children, a jolly shill for Coca-Cola, or death-spewing killer robot. That archetypal universality is what makes him such a lasting representation of the holiday season.


My favorite versions of Santa Claus are the more traditional (well, to modern audiences) version found in the poem "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Clement Clarke Moore (a poem my dad used to read to my brother and I every Christmas Eve until we became sullen teenagers who were too cool for such things), the one which describes Santa Claus as someone whose belly shook like a bowl full of jelly; and the aforementioned Killer Robot Santa Claus from Futurama, because, well, he's a killer robot Santa Claus.

Futurama
Stopping Robot Santa
www.comedycentral.com
Ugly AmericansNick Swardson's Pretend TimeThe Benson Interruption

13 comments:

  1. man i love any Futurama Christmas episode. Especially their alternative carol "Santa Claus is gunning you down"

    Also, the switch wielding santa was great in that Venture Bros episode

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  2. when we were kids our older cousin John told us that one year he woke up in the middle of the night and found santa and a big fat elf leaving and when John checked the bathroom there was a huge disgusting dump in the toilet left by the elf.
    true story

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  3. @Anne: Yeah, I love the second Futurama X-Mas episode, where they go to Neptune and hang out with the elves in short shorts.

    That Venture Bros. episode was one of the earliest, wasn't it?

    @Falen: true story

    That your cousin told you this is true, or that a big fat elf took a disgusting dump in his toilet is true?

    Ah, it doesn't matter, either way it's hilarious.

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  4. i'm pretty sure the dump was so big it broke the toilet

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  5. I self-identify, to invoke the current buzzword, as a Jew (Cue Annie from Community: "Use the whole word!" — and even though there's nothing inherently pejorative about it, I have to agree), but I love Christmas and I especially love Santa Claus. My dad's family was Christian, although he's an atheist-leaning agnostic, and my mom was quite happy for us to have a tree along with the menorah. Chanukah is, after all, the Festival of Lights, and although the holidays don't always overlap on the calendar, when they do it's just bliss to me. Santa doesn't stop bringing you presents unless you ask him to, which my sister did after she got married, and to my chagrin requested that he not bring any for her kids, but I still get a gift from him every year.

    VW: MasCom — The Spanish conglomerate that brings you more of everything.

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  6. @Blam: I still get a gift from him every year.

    Yeah, he drops gifts off at my parent's house and my mother-in-law's house now.

    Oddly enough, while my wife still gets a gift from Santa every year, I don't...

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  7. Oddly enough, while my wife still gets a gift from Santa every year, I don't...

    Bad Santa!

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  8. PS: Maybe he snuck one into the package I sent you...

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  9. LOL! Wow, I love Futurama. I forget how much until I see it or talk about it and then I'm like, hey...love that show.

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  10. @Hannah: Yeah, the same thing happens to me sometimes too. It gets overlooked way more than it should.

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  11. @Blam: PS: Maybe he snuck one into the package I sent you...

    Awesome! Thanks Santa!

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  12. I just wanted to wish you a happy anniversary of this post and Merry Countdown to Christmas 2011. Last year at this time my Internet connection was sucking terribly and the would-be fix that I tried at the end of the month (not inexpensively) wouldn't, so I still have some comments in the ol' hard drive from back then to put up this year. Ho-Ho-Ho!

    VW: liquetr... I don't care how fancily you spell it; I did nothing of the sort.

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  13. @Blam: so I still have some comments in the ol' hard drive from back then to put up this year. Ho-Ho-Ho!

    Excellent! That will help make up for the near lack of new Christmas content I have planned for this year (which is to say, little-to-none). I look forward to them!

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