Is Santa Claus Real?

[Quandaries Sage]

Santa is real he touched me,

 

[winterfag]

NORAD tracks his flight path every year, the government would never lie to us

 

[LEGOsneed]

Saint Nicholas of Myra is real and watches over us, we venerate him on December 6th when we give our kids gifts. Mine still think Santa comes physically to leave presents but in time they'll realize it's the selfless deed that counts and he prays for us in heaven.

 

[A Nonny Moose]

Nah, not real.

I discovered it young, got the proof by sneaking down and seeing my parents fill stockings, and was told "if you don't believe he's real you won't get presents". Since I knew where the presents were actually coming from, I shut my mouth. But how strange for me, knowing my parents and teachers and the media were all lying about something obviously false, and that speaking the truth got me threatened with punishment.

These days I have more integrity and don't go along with social lies. If you don't pretend to believe men can become women you'll face social consequences. If you don't pretend to believe that opposing mass immigration is racist you'll face social consequences. Both about as true as a fat man delivering presents to the whole world.

The Santa lie was the first step on my path of mistrust of authority. So maybe not all bad.

Merry Christmas, Farmers.

 

[Innocent Bystander]

Of course he's real! He's the embodiment of selflessness, he's the spirit of giving without expecting anything in return, he's the light in the eyes, and the smile on the faces of people during this season. He's real and will be real as long as we keep spreading the joy. (And yes, as stated before, Saint Nicholas of Myra was an actual person)

 

[TV's Adam West]

Two possibilities exist: either Santa does exist in the Universe or Santa does not. Both are equally terrifying.

 

[Castoreum]

In the words of my boy Sir Terry Pratchett...

"Humans need fantasy to be human."

 

[Zirnwyb]

Of course he's real! I have a picture of him carrying me as an infant! Surely my mother wouldn't allow some strange, bearded old man claiming to be Santa carry me like that, right?

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Greedy fat bitch invading my home and leaving gifts and eating my cookies. Evil evil creep. Sure fucking park your shit on the roof and be thankful gravity doesn't make it all fall through the top. And his wife? Fuck she do? Supervise the elves despite the fact that she is a severe diabetic to the point she can't drive the sleigh?

 

[Aero the Alcoholic Bat]

Stupid bastard never gets me any of the alcohol I ask every single year.

So even if he's real, he's dead to me.

Bah humbug.

 

[Male Idiot]

Santa Claus, or if we unmuttify his name, Saint Nicholas was a real life priest who lived in the 3.-4. century AD.

He had a penchant for giving gifts, as far as we can tell.

So he was real and you can visit Santa's grave in Italy.

 

[JunkMan.exe]

Santa is real because I saw him fucking my mom after delivering my present, Your gifts aren't free, Santa fucks your mom in exchange for them.

 

[Prof Loco Strikes Back]

Of course he's real, who else is eating the cookies I leave out night?

 

[Sneed's Feed n Seed]

 

[Cloudby Skytoucher]

You're laughably uninformed. There are historical accounts like saint Eligius in the 700s denouncing pagan customs in Flanders, modern day belgium. Complaining about talks of elves and little deer, or setting little tables in return for gifts at new year ( a yule custom). This was in Roman territory. You think when romans conquered territory that people immediately abandoned their former customs? And then there was the unconquered territory, half of the netherlands. One province even being a nordic one with nordic name and language, friesland. You don't think they too had nordic rites?

So now it's elves delivering gifts? Because that's a very different claim to the Wild Hunt being the gift-bearers in question, unless you're somehow going to tell me the Frisians were secretly Celts and Odin is actually Gwyn ap Nudd. Frisians had indeed conquered Flanders, but my main point was more or less that it's a blip on the radar on a longer timescale, and you're going to find much stronger Yule traditions in Northern Europe because the Germanic Pagan presence was so (relatively) brief. It's about on par with claiming Anglo-Saxons better preserved their heritage than the Norse.

I think it's not yours. I was agreeing with your characterization of them being monkey's paw type gifts. So yes, they would be cursed. I explained how I agreed with that part.

You also say they would be better preserved, but they are. There are still backwater places where a bonfire is held in the netherlands for example, an unbroken tradition older than Christ.

The black pete's still carry some of the lore that is from huginn and muninn, odin's birds, for example how they can secretly hear who is good and who isn't.

Fair, and I apologize for that mischaracterization, but I can find no source for Huginn and Muninn hearing who is good and who isn't outside of Guerbar, whom I frankly do not trust as a secondary source. She had very little actual education in the field beyond being a rich Swiss-American woman who allegedly hopped around Western and Central Europe for a while. Especially due to most of her work being made for families, I think she was intentionally misrepresenting the Wild Hunt to make it more palatable to her audience, because the thing she describes sounds basically nothing like the Wild Hunt. You might as well be taking Bowdler's word on Shakespeare. Also can't forget that in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, Nicholas or one of his helpers figures out who's naughty or nice by literally asking them or their parents face-to-face.

Modern scholarship? A book from almost 60 years ago? Why don't you give me a primary source instead. Like you could read Vita Eligii written in the 8th century for proof that christian missionaries condemned the pagan beliefs in these areas which included yule customs specifically.

But is this a Yule custom? Because frankly, I don't see any real evidence that it is. You can have Eligius talk about ACTUAL Yule customs all you like, but this ancillary stuff about Odin/Wotan being Santa Claus and the Wild Hunt being synonymous with St. Nicholas' Day I do not buy. Especially given that in the Netherlands specifically, the "wild" aspect of the Wild Hunt was particularly well-preserved as an idea through the whole "buckriders" concept, and the highwaymen who used it as an excuse to rob as late as the 18th century. Compare Sinterklaas whose main tradition was putting coins in the shoes of the poor, and later children. Things like the flying horse just seem like ancillary details added later, and the only other evidence people like Guerbar or Grimm seem to cite is...he has a big white beard? Like that isn't a thing ALL folk figures based on old men have? Correlation does not equal causation, and I'm not even sure the flying horse is a direct reference to the Sleipnir either, except perhaps in the most shallow possible "wow what if Sinterklaas had a flying horse too" kind of way.

Scholars always fit narratives of what is politically expedient at the time. There are scholars today that say men and women are only different because of how they are raised. Give me a primary source that would cast doubt on what christian missionaries wrote about it in the 700s.

Yeah I'm sure in 1970 that was a big concern, but go off. The New Years' gifts Eligius describes were handed between people in celebration, not allegedly carpetbombed by their gods with mystical curses attached to them, you could interview a multitude of Scandinavians and they'll state pretty emphatically that Santa Claus had zero presence in that region of the world until American culture brought it over. You could compare and contrast the other St. Nicholas traditions in the rest of the ex-HRE, and they'll all have the same core features: Old bishop guy rides around asking kids if they've been naughty, and handing out presents. The core idea bears very little resemblance to Odin or even the Wild Hunt in general. Is the flying horse Sleipnir? Maybe, but there's a much better argument to be made that Sinterklaas is an elf than him being Odin laughing maniacally and lobbing cursed presents down domestic chimneys that wouldn't be invented for another 400 years.

 

[Mike and Eichs]

Saw this in the features and just came to say this.

Santa is a tulpa.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

Santa is pals with Xi Jinping. Would the Chinese lie to you about about Santa Claus?

 

[Extra Racist E.O. Wilson]

All of these Santa deniers are getting in their stockings what they post on the forum; coal.

 

[Trump's Chosen]

Santa Claus and the Wild Hunt being synonymous with St. Nicholas' Day I do not buy

I generally enjoyed the back and forth. I did learn a number of things from what you wrote, so I thank you for that. I'd just like to point out that there's a difference from something being synonymous with each other and informing each other. For example, santa clause and sinterklaas are not synonymous, but sinterklaas informed some parts of santa clause.

lobbing cursed presents down domestic chimneys that wouldn't be invented for another 400 years.

Even pre-middle ages dwellings had fires inside their permanent dwellings and some kind of hole/vent to not die from carbon monoxide poisoning (although that also happened from time to time).

Also just to be clear, I concede the argument. I don't know anything about this, just wanted to learn some more about it, thank you for helping with that.

 

[Sledgehammer Lobotomy]

Santa is real. I caught him fucking my wife and he magic'd up the chimney before i could beat his fat jolly ass