This is my obligatory holiday-related post. What crazy, pointless point will I try to defend this year? Brace yourself… Santa Claus is a criminal. Here’s why.

Who is Santa Claus? He is a mythical figure ingrained in modern popular culture. He has been around for years. In fact, the notion of a man who gives presents to children on Christmas Eve goes back hundreds of years. So what could be wrong with this? The simple fact is, that while this is an innocuous story told to children year after year, if someone in real life we caught doing what Santa does, he would be in jail in short order.

Santa Claus is an eccentric old man who happens to own a sweatshop at the North Pole. That is so Connery-era James Bond. He basically flies all over the world and breaks into every house on Earth and gives presents to the kids. That’s right, there’s an old guy breaking into your house in the middle of the night and he’s got something for your kid. So what charges would Santa be brought up on?

• B&E – The first obvious charge would be breaking and entering. According to most versions of the myth, Santa enters the house through the chimney. Personally, I think it would be easier to break into a house through a door or unlocked window. On the other hand, we are talking about a man who dresses in bright red and lives at the north pole.
• Immigration violations – I am not a legal expert, so I cannot list any specific regulations. However, he does technically reside in international water, which is where the north pole is located. Other versions of the myth claim that Santa’s residence is in Canada or one of the Scandinavian nations. Either way, he does violate the airspace and borders of 195 nations in one night every year. That, I am almost certain,is against American immigration law. I am sure that other nations on Earth would take issue with him doing this.
• Labor law – This is more of an ethical area than a legal area. According to most modern interpretations of the Santa Claus myth, he has a factory at the north pole where his elves manufacture toys for Santa to distribute to the children. However, no mention is made of Santa ever compensating them for their labor. This would seem to indicate that Santa uses the elves as slave labor, clearly violating UN policy as well as the moral scruples of the developed world. This does not make Santa look good in the eyes of human- or elf-rights activists.

Santa is a criminal he must be stopped. Parents all over the world continue to tell children of the jolly, kind man who gives them presents every year. However, it seems as though the children never hear about the real man behind the beard, the criminal. Santa should be feared and reviled by children. However, it is difficult to convince children of an ugly truth like this when it is so much more satisfying to believe that Santa Claus is nothing more than a kind, magical man who only spreads joy across the world. Yet year after year, kids are taught to idolize a man who violates the airspace of 195 nations, breaks into millions of homes, and uses slave labor to produce toys. It needs to end here. I call on all parents to stop teaching children about Santa. At the very least, they should expose him for what he really is, a criminal.

Merry Christmas.