SG: ‘I’m afraid America has no idea who I am.’

Consultant/Flunky: ‘Well sir, perhaps if we attack somebody we might raise
awareness.’

SG: ‘Hmmm, somebody well-known but not TOO important or TOO
controversial.’

Con/Flunk: ‘How about the Obesity Epidemic? Everybody knows that’s bad
and evil.’

SG: ‘Yeah, but who’s up front that we can safely go after?’

Con/Flunk: ‘It is December, Sir. . . . Santa Claus has got that Bowl Full of Jelly
thing going on. . . With all the cookies & eggnog his arteries have
gotta be one solid clot or he’s about ready to go into a diabetic
coma.’

SG: ‘Yeah – YEAH! We can really go after THAT Fat Bastard!’

Con/Flunk: ‘Even better, Sir: he can’t claim defamation. . . ‘Cause he doesn’t
exist!!’

SG: ‘. . . Wait . . . Santa. . . Doesn’t. . . EXIST??!’

Con/Flunk: ‘. . . Ummmm, I’ll go pick-up your suits now, Sir. How about a nice
hot Coco when I get back? With some yummy 2% and half an
Equal!

Thank you! You get it, 100%. Children *should* want to emulate Santa, because Santa is a symbol whose body shape represents generosity, expansiveness, celebrating the feast. The problem with commercialism in Christmas is that people simply come to associate Santa with a store employee hawking toys and photographs. The “giving” side of the season is limited to “buy lots of stuff and give it to people.”

And there’s the other point a couple of writers mentioned above, too – that if children associate Santa with warmth and love and generosity, they will also associate their grandpas, uncles, etc. who happen to be fat with the same things. What the Santa Police want is for children to look critically and harshly on their fat relatives (and friends.) This is the nasty, ugly side of Fat Santa Bashing.

I know that Santa has not always consistently been depicted as fat (there are vintage images of Father Christmas that aren’t particularly rotund), but it seems to me that here and now, Fat Santa is a way to stick it to the Food Police. And if you do keep Christmas, getting older, fat male relatives to dress up as Santa for the kids can be a lot of fun – as well as a symbolic way to flip off the fat bashers.

Oh yeah… Better a crackhead who can’t finish rehab (or looking 50 when you’re only 30) than fat. So, now Lindsay the crackhead is a better role model than say… Jordin Sparks or Michael Jordan

2. Next up: Requirements that all stuffed cuddly toys should slim down. At least 20% less stuffing inside to bring down their STMI (Stuffed Toy Mass Index) and make teddy bears and rag dolls slender role models for our children!

But…but….but… I want my squishy teddy… *tear*

I love spinach. No thanks to Popeye. I love chocolate chip cookies and milk. No thanks to Santa. Christmas comes once a year. Nothing wrong with indulging.

And that’s why we have to destroy him. Because if there is even the tiniest counterbalance to the hate, our children might get the message that it’s okay to be fat. And we could never have that.

Again, I say, the surgeon general, my ass, the kissing that can happen.

I mean, really: the illogic of it is enough to make my head explode – the idea that kids will develop an attitude that they should be fat because Santa is.

I mean, if ANYTHING, Santa’s a little tiny counterbalance to all the hate out there. I mean – Barbie dolls. Starlets getting horrible scolding stories in the tabloids if they gain 5 pounds. Little kids not being allowed to have cupcakes for their school birthday parties any more.

I do not understand – DO NOT UNDERSTAND – the mentality of people who want to do this kind of crap, take all the fun and joy and specialness out of life and make us all this grey mass of dry-broccoli eating treadmill conformists who never enjoy anything because it might – gasp – be bad for us.

I’m sure “lack of pleasure” is pretty bad for us, come to think of it.

Maybe we should all bake a batch of cookies and send them to the Surgeon General. Oh, they’d get thrown out of course (either out of fear of what might be in them or because they contain EEEEVILLL calories), but still…it’s a protest.