It used to amuse me, as a teenage Bolshevik, that Father Christmas was a doppelganger for Karl Marx. Apart from the visage, which would confuse any facial recognition technology, there was that red outfit – the Commo colour so emphasising his ideological tendencies that you might have replaced Jingle Bells with The Internationale. His “ho ho ho” reminded me of one of his elves, Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh. And even his most popular reindeer, Rudolph (and what sort of leftie name was that), flaunted his political proclivities with that shiny, glowing red nose.
Although the modern incarnation of Santa is a devilish capitalist plot to boost December retail sales, the whole Father Christmas business (and business it certainly is) came out sounding rather Bolshie to me. A bloke from somewhere in the USSR’s Siberia dodging western radar and US antimissile systems to give presents to kiddies all over the world, whether or not they lived in “free” countries. Missile silos couldn’t prevent him getting down our chimneys. I’m sure the patriotic Senator McCarthy warned Americans during his infamous Communist witch hunt, but no one took Joe seriously. ASIO had a file on the Red Menace who arrived every December. And I’m sure the CIA had an assassination plot, just as it had for Castro and Assange. But still, year after year, Santa violates our airspace. Forget the Trojan Horse. It’s time to rein in those red reindeer. Not that there’s much room for Christmas in Australia in 2023. Not anywhere. Certainly not in Ukraine, where Putin will be destroying anything that stirs with attack drones. And despite the ethnicity of Jesus Christ, whose birth provided the name, Christmas is not much celebrated in the Middle East, except for some ceremonies in Jerusalem, that small city so tragically overcrowded with faiths. Orthodox Jews find the whole idea blasphemous. The Second Coming is anticipated by fundamentalist Christians, but Jews still await the First. And Muslims are sitting this out. If they aren’t being bombed out. The only gift a child gets in Gaza is horror. What they need is food, water, medical supplies and, for Christmas decorations, a glimmer of hope. Same sorry story for kids in other war-torn cities and refugee camps around the world.
Old Father Christmas, as he was first known, made his debut in England in the mid-17th Century. The Puritans had legislated to abolish the fun of his festival, seeing it as Papish, but after the Civil War he was put back on his throne so people could enjoy themselves with feasting and merrymaking. In the 21st Century, with its woes of war, his sleigh’s again on the skids – while his reindeers are being shoved aside by the Four Horses of the Apocalypse.
Just as Superman can no longer expect, in the smartphone age, to be able to change into his technicolour undies in a phone booth, Father Christmas must also find chimneys few and far between these days. And some will find him harder to believe in. But I like his old slogan. Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All. (On my list of wishes was the Voice. No luck there. A Republic? Julian Assange out of Belmarsh? Significant action on climate? Some rain at the farm? Another year of life?) Happy Christmas, everyone.
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