The dark side of Santa

[Meant as tongue in cheek]

Seeing as Christmas is coming, I thought I'd share some thoughts with you about Santa.

Santa is not much of an anagram of Satan. According to popular modern versions of the myths, both take the form of a man when on the earthly realm, both dress from head to foot in red, both have the ability to be in any number of places at the same time and neither are bound by the normal laws of physics.

The early descriptions of Satan have it that he was a mischief who enjoyed leading people astray, leading them into temptation. Satan leads us to believe that material possessions are of paramount importance, tempting us with material gifts to follow and worship him.

In Norse mythology, there was a chap called Odin. Odin was a god, sort of middle management level. He was lord of the hunt and collector of souls. He would ride around the forests of scandinavia on winter nights on his sleigh pulled by a team of dogs. He would collect the souls, perhaps of those that had sold their solds for material treasures? Popular myth has it that Santa comes from Scandinavia, and he too rides his sleigh on winter nights.

In another version of Santa's legend, he came from a village in Italy where he was the only rich person in the area, and almost everyone else was stone broke. A pretty young peasant woman had dreams of going away to school so she could better herself and escape the life of poverty. Knowing she was skint but proud, Santa knew she wouldn't accept charity, so one winter's night, he crept to her house, and chucked a bag of cold coins through her bedroom window. By chance it landed in one of her stockings that was hung from the end of her bed. She discovered it the next morning and thus the legend had begun.

Are we to believe that the richest man that happened to fancy this young woman paid her to go away? Why would he do that? Are we to believe that he managed to get the money bag into her stocking by throwing it through the window? That's some lucky shot. If he was so keen to be discreet, how come we all know about it?

Nowadays, we are all security conscious. Most of us have double glazed windows with good locks on them, and several locks on our doors. We all secure our houses at night. Many of us nowadays don't have open chimneys and open fireplaces. Yet somehow this master burglar gets into our houses when we are all asleep. Worse, he goes into the kids bedrooms. If it was anyone other than santa the first heavy object that came to hand would be delivered swiftly to his head just before the police were called, yet because its santa we not only don't mind, but we actually give him food and drink. Whats even worse is that after all those glasses of sherry, by the time he gets to our house he is a drunken maniac master burglar, and we still welcome him in. Has anyone even CRB checked him? Probably not, because breaking and entering, driving an unregistered vehicle, drink driving and dangerous driving (he can cover the whole world in one night, that means he ignores all our speed limits) would all surely be on his record. And what do the RAF and the Civil Aviation Authority make of him I wonder? I bet he didn't submit a flight plan.

There is also the small matter of tax fraud. When Santa does his tax return I bet he declares all the gifts as tax deductable. Has nobody told Revenue and Customs that most of the gifts are bought by parents? Santa is writing off his profits against expenses he isn't incurring.

So next time you hear someone tell a child "If you are naughty, Santa won't come", you can give them a dissapproving look. With Santa's record, who is he to judge if someone has been naughty?

 

Love it! Haven't seen this one before!

 

That's because I just wrote it

 

LOL - didn't realise it was your own creation! Was surprised I hadn't had it at some point in the chain of emails you get with these things circulating! Well done

 

:lollol:

2 things..........

1) father christmas was tradtionally dressed in green (true, but cant remember why)

2) Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of many things, including children and prostitutes (true). The story goes that this old man had 3 daughters and he couldnt work anymore, so they all were to go on the "game" in the morning. they washed their stockings and hung them by the fire to dry. St Nick saved them from becoming whores by depositing a bag of gold in each stocking :hehe:

but thinking about it, how many hookers worked the day shift??

 

It was the Coca Cola Company that put him in red. I don't know why he would have once been dressed in green, but applying tenuous connections with ancient folklore I'm going to have a bash at it, just for fun. Who knows if I tell enough people this then it might become 'the truth', that's how legends seem to work

Here goes: We already know that Santa has connections with the Norse god Odin, lord of the hunt and collector of souls. Odin's origin comes from a belief system based on nature, and in such early pagan systems, a recurring figure is the 'Green Man of the Woods'. In that particular collection of belief systems, there was also the green woman. Both were just two different aspects of the same thing, rather than seperate entities. They represented nature, in that one can't exist without the other and so they are part of the greater whole. Incidentally I didn't make up that last bit, this is where the May Day tradition of a boy and a girl twined together by the hands that lead the procession to the may pole dance comes from. In these early pagan systems, the green man of the woods represents what we might call the evil aspect, and the woman represents the good. Good and evil is not a very accurate way of putting it because again one can't exist without the other. You can't have food without killing and eating another living thing (that includes plants), and you can't have warmth without burning fuel such as wood. Basically you can't have life without death. The green man of the woods represent this less pleasant aspect of nature, while the woman represents the nurturing aspect, and the bringing of new life.

So the green man of the woods, a bloke who is literally represented as being green, represented the darker side of nature. The death, the brutality. Odin, lord of the hunt and collector of souls has striking parallels with santa and as a figure from norse paganism that was lord of the hunt and collector of souls could also be considered to be the green man of the woods figure. So is santa the green man of the woods? Is he therefore Odin, lord of the hunt and collector of souls? Is therefore santa in his green outfit who reminds us of the need to take material things in order to live, the dark aspect of nature?

 

Here's someone who enjoyed their Christmas dinner.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5zld2_diner-pour-un-humour-anglais-tres-d_

 

Thank you for the laugh, just what I needed this morning :lollol:

Very clever!!