Decolonising Father Christmas - let's do it!

It doesn't have to be either / or. We are big Father Christmas fans in our house but we don't do any of the naughty / nice list shit, which I think is horrible. Who really wants to teach their kids that some children don't deserve presents? Whenever my son hears about the naughty list from others I say it's something adults joke about but it's not real. I think it's fine and interesting / fun to learn about thinks like the Sami, kids love that kind of thing and it doesn't detract from any of the magic or fun.

As usual with these things there will be a few gammons in white-knuckle rage about Christmas Tradition™️ being eroded by wokeism (conveniently ignoring the fact that most of these dearly cherished traditions are only a few decades old and were probably invented by Coca Cola) but most people will have an interesting chat with their children about Christmas around the world and then move on with their day.

Where does West start🙈

Can something this patronising be described as woke - or is that what makes it woke?

Anyway Santa Claus n his red and white is a commercial creation by Coca Cola.
Christmas when I last looked is a Christian religion that originated in the Middle East and Father Christmas is derived from St Nicholas hence he is male.
The problem for me with decolonisation talk is that it in itself is a form of neo colonialism as it usually led by the west, has a western focus and does not seem to recognise the discrimination and oppression that exists in other societies who seem to exist as an ideological utopia.

Edited as quote didn’t pull through

@ConcernedOfClapham
same here!

My 2.5 year old Grandson put everyone except me on the nice list. ‘You, GranGran are on the very naughty list! ‘ I am wearing this with pride.

Honestly couldn't work out whether this was a parody.

Had to check that it's a genuine website.

They seem to be advertising something called 'A Very Austen Christmas' at the Brighton Pavilion. Goodness knows how that is even allowed.

Ok I've read the article. When it talks about indigenous people, they forget that we must have had thousands of years of tradition here in the UK, based around nature and the seasons and sadly most of us have lost that connection. Scotland and Ireland have possibly hung on to some old traditions more successfully than England has been able to. Our children need their roots too.

I feel like the naughty/nice thing has never been particularly emphasised outside of that one weird song.

Exactly. Talk about colonising there, eh😂

I'm fine with Santa as he is. We never did presents contingent on behaviour. As a small child I found the idea of being watched by a bearded old man very creepy. Christmas is a day of togetherness and putting your best foot forward, I didn't want my kids feeling anxious on the run up.

We never pushed Santa as a concept really or talked about Santa. They were free to believe what they wanted, so they believed for a bit then dropped it easily.

They knew presents were from parents and different families had different budgets. I've seen preachy posts this year to buy your own children less so that other children don't feel less loved by Santa, or that they've done something wrong. I find that really irritating and maybe we could drop the concept of using Santa as behaviour control. That doesn't get away from the fact that some children would still have much less at Christmas and all that brings with it.

I love all the different myths around Santa, different traditions etc. It's nice to learn about those for no reason other than it's interesting.

I'm not even going to Google what the term 'decolonise' means in the context of Santa.

Most people are fine with Santa being as he is. I am from a Muslim family and we love celebrating the cultural aspects of Christmas and have no issue with the current Father Christmas situation.

The problem is, these kind of threads and articles just invite bigots to pipe up and say how outraged they are.

Did Brighton council? All OP has done is share it, which is surely what the council wants. Nice attempt to reframe the blame - not.

Anyway, there's nothing wrong with the Western cultural tradition of Father Christmas. The more these nihilist twonks are laughed at and shamed the better.

I was born in the 1960s. I recall as a very small child being very excited to be read a story by our class teacher in about 1968 called ‘Mother Christmas’. It was about all the wonderful things she did.

Oh, those woke 1960s …

It's Brighton and Hove. Of course they're decolonising Santa. No doubt they leave him a little snack of tofu and quinoa by their artisan hand-knitted Peruvian yak wool stockings.

Hardly surprising 🤣

It’s a post by one person, presumably okayed by one or 2 other people. It doesn’t represent a huge population of “the woke” and it’s dumb as fuck to suggest it does. It also has an interesting perspective you’re welcome to consider or not. Merry Christmas.

When DS was younger he was desperate for a lump of coal because he was convinced it would also contain a diamond.

This is why i think it's bollocks.
Some woke idiot thinking the entire world sees Santa the same way we do.
They don't obviously.
Also i never told my kids they had to be good to get gifts, they had to be good because that's just what you do. I also never told them some random bloke was watching what they did. That's another reason to detest that fucking elf.
Yes we still did Santa stuff.

I dress up as Santa Clausperson, a non-binary festive figure. I have tried to include everyone in a land acknowledgment before we eat Christmas dinner but that got us barred from Toby Carvery so I’ve given up on that for now.

Oh I agree. I previously worked as an early years teacher in a very deprived area where many of our children did not receive Christmas gifts, or if they did they were small tokens. It used to break my heart to think that these small children would ever be made to think this was because they were naughty or not nice.

I thought you meant we should clean out his colon 🫢

Jesus wept cant they leave anything alone?
😡😡

I always hoped to get a lump of coal, when I never got one I felt I needed to up my game the next year...