Toronto Star Op Ed

Okay, okay, without further ado--

Enough with the Santa-bashing

There is still something simple and joyful about a holiday in which we give each other presents
The Rev. W. Tay Moss

Here is how Santa Claus was crucified.

A story began circulating in the 1990s that a Japanese department store chain attempted to lure shoppers to adopt Christmas with a comically wrong poster: They crucified Santa.

There he was, the jolly red-suited man, dying on a cross. The mistake was understandable, but also probably apocryphal. No one has ever proved that this actually happened in Japan.

It did, however, happen in the United States. A Washington state man, Art Conrad, crucified a life-sized Santa Claus mannequin in his front yard in 2007 to protest the commercialization of Christmas.

CTV News reported him saying, "Santa has been perverted from who he started out to be. Now he's the person being used by corporations to get us to buy more stuff."

He's right. The 4th-century St. Nicholas of Myra – remembered for saving three sisters from a life of slavery or prostitution by giving them money for dowries – bears little resemblance to the iconic shopping-mall Santa with his squirm-inducing lap.

Considering that the average American owes nearly $9,000 in credit-card debt, there is good reason to organize a mob south of the 49th parallel.

This is the new wave of anti-Santa, let's-save-Christmas sentiment. Forget the stuff about how Christmas lost Christ – the new front in the war on St. Nick is about overconsumption fed by credit-card debt.

No one captures the spirit of this new anti-corporation mood better than Rev. Billy of The Church of Stop Shopping. Rev. Billy (a persona created by actor and performance artist Billy Talen) has been on a crusade against the likes of Wal-Mart, Disney and Starbucks. He wants to put the "odd" back in God.

With his Elvis-like hair, white suits and televangelist voice, he has tried to exorcise the demons of greed from cash registers at Starbucks (which got him arrested) and staged other protests designed to prevent the "Shopocalypse." It's the best sort of spoof, as funny as it is relevant.

There are many reasons why Canadians might have qualms about Santa, too. Perhaps his little North Pole kingdom violates Canadian Arctic sovereignty?

And has anyone checked whether his elfin toy sweatshops violate Labour Canada policies? And what's up with the naughty-and-nice list?

Yet the most compelling argument against Christmas in Canada is simply this: Can we claim that this essentially Christian holiday (even its most tamed, Santa-ized version) is relevant to non-Christians?

Consider that Statistics Canada reports that most of the population growth in Canada is due to immigration – a record-setting 89,100 in the third quarter of this year alone. Most of these newcomers (83.9 per cent in 2006) were from non-European countries.

Even putting questions of immigration aside, it's clear that Canada is rapidly becoming less and less Christian.

StatsCan reports that the number of Canadians who identify as being Christian has steadily declined over the years, from 82.8 per cent in 1991 to 76.6 per cent in 2001.

Meanwhile, the number of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs have all either doubled in number or come close.

Given the increasingly multicultural, secular character of Canadian society, what does Christmas have to offer? My answer is that Santa represents the best spirit of generosity and pure fun the Great White North can muster.

For all the justified hand-wringing about consumerism or Canada becoming a post-Christian nation, there is still something simple and joyful about a holiday in which we give each other presents. It's winter; it's cold and snowy. What else is there to do except show our love with a little generosity?

For Christians, this is a small imitation of the grand goodness of a loving God that gave us the gift of himself in Jesus.

We celebrate because God did a very good thing for us, but that doesn't mean that we have exclusive rights to a season of joy and giving.

So, let's share Santa with the malls and the corporations and everyone else who wants to celebrate generosity and joy, because at the end of the day, it's really all about the love.

The Rev. W. Tay Moss is the incumbent minister at The Church of the Messiah at Avenue Rd. and Dupont. (source)

Incidentally for all the professional editors in my family--the title and the subtitle as well as the paragraph divisions were all paper's choices. My original title was "The Accidental Crucifixion of Santa Clause or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Yuletide"--but I suppose that was too long for them. I understand!

-t