Santa is a great salesman. He is a public relations spokesman for capitalism, and the first politician and influencer that human children are exposed to when they grow up. This is the critical age when all children learn the very important message: “only through presents and products can a human being ever be truly happy”.
By contrast, children that do not get presents are unhappy children, even though they may have loving parents. If a child has no presents, it was either a bad child, or had bad parents. Santa Claus teaches us the very important learning that without presents, there is no love.
Santa is very friendly and will have many product recommendations for you, but you have to understand that he is one busy man. He doesn’t get on his reindeer sleigh for nothing. There is commission to be made, which comes from Santa’s main employer, Amazon. He pretends to share this commission with his elves: made-up creatures which are as fake as Santa himself.
The real elves are actually humans that reside over in Asia, where they are busy round the clock making toys. Many of Santa’s real elves are actually children. These are the bad children that did not deserve toys, but instead have to make toys for the good children, with very little salary and terrible working conditions.
Santa doesn’t have reindeer anymore, ever since they became an endangered species. Instead, the toys are put on big supertanker container ships that run on fossil fuel. By the time they have reached their destination, the toys have amassed so much carbon footprint and violated so many animal and human rights, but this is unfortunately the price we must all pay for love. It is all worth it, as at least some of the children on Earth get to have presents.
The bad children are also sometimes lucky. This is because the good children throw away most of their presents, which are then shipped to third world countries as garbage. There, the bad children can walk through burning mountains of garbage and occasionally find a good toy. They must be careful though, not to breathe in the carcinogenic fumes as they will die before they reach adulthood.
Eventually there are too many fumes, and both the good and the bad children breathe them in, as well as the next generation of children.
But love is still there, and so are the toy sweatshops, and most importantly, Santa Claus gets to keep his job.
George is an author, researcher, podcast host, chemist, molecular biologist and food scientist. You can follow him on Twitter @99blackbaloons , listen to his Spotify podcast George reads George, sign up for blog alerts below, or enjoy his books
George Tsakraklides 
The culture of make believe ! Merry Christmas and for all a spartan future.
It was cold, cold like it is now across America, my marina was covered with ice and the subject of 2 Federal Lawsuits from PCBs and the filth of humanity that entered into it illegally. Our government spent many millions defending the pollution from my litigation and protecting a major company that spent a fortune on its election campaigns. 8,000 gallons of heavy black crude came out of a storm culvert virtually proving my case that many illegal connections were hooked to their sewer system. those lawsuits generated many thousands of documents, reports, studies, and testimony from the world’s foremost experts in toxins. After fighting them for over 20 years I can state this with conviction. This is one of the remaining few Christmases our children will see. PCB-laced marine microplastic has killed and displaced half the ocean’s phytoplankton in my lifetime, all other issues are moot. My litigation could have made a difference.
I’d never seen it that way, but you are so right. Poignantly right, dear George. Nevertheless I wish you a Merry Christmas! Thank you for your eye-opening thinking and writing!
Florian from Switzerland
Thank you. Happy holidays