The Truth About Santa?

Ahh, Christmas. The time of joy, togetherness, and having a strangely dressed elderly man reverse burglarize your home. We all love Santa, but who really knows anything about him? If the truth about Father Christmas is so dangerous that we must hide it from small children, let’s just be real here: this guy’s pretty sus. Fortunately for all of us unenlightened ones, the conspiracy theorists have our back.

One of the most popular conspiracy theories regarding our dear Kris Kringle is that his secret identity is Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “Just think about it,” one anonymous Reddit user said. “Who else knows each and every one of our addresses and unfailingly sends us stuff we didn’t think we needed?” In response to criticism that the theory does not explain the existence of Santa prior to the rise of Amazon, some have also denied the existence of humanity before Amazon entirely. As the same user put it, “Rousseau said, ‘I buy, therefore I am,’ didn’t he?”

A variant on this theory is that Bezos kidnapped Santa, and in a macabre imitation of “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” is pretending to be him. According to some sources who will not be named due to their inability to coherently state their names, Bezos hates Christmas. Resenting the fact that Santa was undercutting his prices on happiness and holiday spirit markets, he resolves that as soon as he could trap Americans in their homes with nothing but their Alexas, he’d replace the old man.

Theorists disagree on how he kidnapped Santa or what happened to him thereafter. But as former Amazon employee Michael Werrywort said, “A few years ago, Bezos tried to see if he could sell his moral compass on Amazon for a million dollars. Apparently, some idiot actually bought it, so yeah, I don’t think this is going to go very well.” Werrywort suggested that Bezos flew to the North Pole in his private jet sometime in April with a cargo full of some 300 bewildered Amazon employees. He then forced Santa to be the operations manager of what he is calling “Christmas Prime” (obviously in contrast to Christmas Subprime, the 2008 project of Goldman Sachs).

Allegedly, he plans to cut the pay and benefits of the elves, which has many worried, even those who don’t normally care much about anyone else’s life or livelihood. As United States Senator Mitch McConnell told The Spectator in an e-mail interview, “See, normally I’m quite happy when I receive gifts made by children working in sweatshops because at least the kids aren’t unionized. But these elves, they’re a different story—what if all of that unity and good get to their heads and they all go on strike?”

Such cataclysmic sentiments were shared by another set of Santa theorists: environmentalists. Biologists at the Center for Study of the Obvious claim that given most humans have neither the supersonic speed to visit every house in the world in one night nor the agility to slip down chimneys narrower than their own girth carrying more than their weight in gifts, Santa Claus must be of another species—most likely some sort of insect. The same argument can be made regarding his reindeer, which distinguish themselves in their ability to fly, as well as his elves, given their talent for essentially reliving the month of December twelve times each year without going insane.

Unfortunately, according to a report by the Polar Communities Initiative, the ecosystem they call the Winter Wonderland is rapidly melting. Without slowing climate change dramatically, in less than a decade, we will have to have Amazon workers replace elves entirely since Amazon workers are one of the few life forms hardy enough to survive in such cold, harsh, and unforgiving climates. A recent photo by the same organization depicted a stranded St. Nick on a block of ice, which was published in The Washington Post. This caught the attention of both wildlife lovers and parents of small children, who, after their initial shock of discovering that Santa is an insect, reached out with donations.

Given the number of potential explanations for the existence of Santa Claus and the potential threats to him, it is easy to feel confused about your own beliefs in Santa. However, this need not be the case. Personally, I think that as beliefs go, it’s best to keep things simple. If you don’t know what to believe, don’t believe in anything. As far as I’m concerned, Santa doesn’t exist. Neither does Christmas.