The Evolution Of Santa

 If you or I or anyone on Team Atheist were to go back in time and do a Terminator to kill the Sarah Connor's of Christmas, there are two dudes that we must go and get.

One is Clement Clark Moore. This dude took a not so well know legend, St. Nick, and turned it into this ginormous thing. Originally St. Nick was a 4th century priest that was generous-n-stuff and he did give gifts to people and even used a stocking; but he was no Santa.

 Moore took that and added some Sinter/Cinter Klaus elements from the Dutch. Sinter/Cinter Klaus was then merged with the Pagan Yule God, Oden for more characteristics. Oden's 8 legged flying horse did not make the cut tho.

 To further the transformation, Moore added on to his Elfish gift giver, American furs (yuck) and a pipe. Legend does not say what is in the pipe, but if dude was doing all this work-n-stuff...then he smoked the weeds. Needless to say at this point in the transformation Santa was looking more like a hippie Elf than a priest (which is the origin).

At this point Santa did have a sack full of toys, the flying sky sleigh, the not PETA approved slave reindeer with their own names and his sick arse pipe.

 The next loser that evolved the myth of Santa is illustrator Thomas Nast. He was commissioned by Harper's Weekly to, to....err, I dunno. But when he was finished the Nu Santa was no longer an elf; dude was now taller (and more American-ish). He was jolly with a "twinkle in his eye" and he was also aided by two important tools: 1) his list of naughty or nice kids and 2) the North Pole where his factory is located (and incidentally, is also the place of many work place violations.).

 This season there has been much ado about should Christian parents teach their innocent children about Santa when obviously Santa is Satan, and to embrace Santa is pretty much, well, a sin. On one site I was checking out it pretty much said Santa is made up so don't believe in dude. Well, that is when Team Atheist says to Christians...pot, kettle, black.

More Kriss' War On Christmas later folks. Stay warm and stay awesome.

* History Channel