Peeve Farm

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Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
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Thursday, December 5, 2002

01:29 - Who doesn't like Santa Claus?
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/12/05/offbeat.germany.santa.reut/index.html

(top)

Hokay... do we chalk this one up to "rampant anti-Americanism in Europe" or what?

I mean, with the start of December always comes an inexorable tide of commercialism, and with it comes the inevitable backlash of sarcastic riffs on the "true meaning of Christmas" (which, as Tom Lehrer and Trey Parker both have so memorably illustrated, is in fact the commercial spirit in and of itself). Our whole economy is centered around the gift-giving season. We feel guilty for being such tools of it all, but we console ourselves with these bits of self-effacing humor, and head to the malls anyway, tired smiles and all, and we toss small bills into the Salvation Army kettles to help soothe our spirits as we rush from Crate & Barrel to Crown Books.

But is this really necessary?

Eckhard Bieger, a Roman Catholic priest in Frankfurt, said he is all for the holiday season, gift exchanges and family celebrations. But he believes the twinkly-eyed old man in a red costume is a commercial fraud.

"Santa Claus is a creation of the advertising industry and Coca-Cola to further commercial interests," Bieger told Reuters.

"I don't have anything against Christmas presents and don't want to disappoint children," he said. "My aim is to put St. Nicholas back at the center of attention rather than this Santa Claus figure, which is just an empty shell."

You know, the simple fact that most people in the world don't know that Santa Claus has anything to do with Coke says to me that Santa Claus as an icon no longer belongs to Coca-Cola, nor stands as a meaningful representation of the blatant US-stoked cultural imperialism that puts McDonalds and Levi's into Russia and Saudi Arabia, where they so clearly aren't wanted.

This guy is tilting at windmills, in that kind of petty and futile way that we see when the Southern Baptists boycott Disney movies because the company has pro-gay-rights policies. It's an action that has no possibility of causing even any discomfort to the entity that the complainant has a problem with, and it's an action whose nature is completely divorced from the nature of the offense in question. If what this guy has a problem with is crass commercialism in the Christmas season, this stunt is going to do nothing but deprive kids of the biggest source of joy in the whole year, while allowing a few Concerned Adults to feel morally superior and untainted by the tawdry dreck that Christmas has become.

It's seemed to me from time to time that the long-term result of the Politically Correct No-Fault Nerf World era is going to be a generation of kids who have grown up without ever learning to have genuine fun, take honest risks, or learn any hard knocks first-hand-- and they'll have become adults incapable of joy, strength, or humanity.

This just seems like more of the same. Ho ho ho to you, merry sunshine.

UPDATE: Besides which, as pointed out by Hiker, the whole "Santa Claus was invented by Coca-Cola" thing is a myth anyway.

Visit snopes.com's Cokelore page for this and a bunch more fun stuff, including the full history of the "anti-Islamic message" thing I posted about a while ago. Hey, did you know that that logo not only says "No Muhammad, No Mecca", but also contains a sideways image of a guy snorting coke?