The idea of a sack man breaking into houses in the middle of the night to deliver presents to kids who’ve never seen him grow is a bit bizarre – but, come on, it works. The problem is that Santa Claus has created a Christmas monopoly, stifling competitors from other centuries and latitudes. Let’s do them justice.
There would be no Papito without Saint Nicholas, a bishop born in the 3rd century and who inspired the good old man. Legend has it that among the miracles it produced was the resurrection of three boys who had been dismembered by a butcher, who stored their parts in barrels.
Nicholas has spanned the centuries as a patron saint of children. In some areas, he was accompanied by his opposite, the evil Krampus.
The first was the “good cop” who rewarded those who had been good with gifts. The horned and hairy devil, popular in Austria and Germany, embodied the evil side of the duo, punishing insolent children with whips. In the most sinister version, he put them in his bag and took them to the underworld.
The Italians have Befana, a good witch who travels on a broom and leaves presents for children at this time of year. The Catalans maintain a Christmas tradition that is not exactly a version of Christmas, but which preserves the spirit of the season: the Caganer, a small doll inserted in local nativity scenes, alongside Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus.
It is exactly what its name suggests: it is the image of a squatting peasant, pants down and buttocks exposed, defecating. Waste placed on the ground is no small matter: it symbolizes fertilization and an abundant harvest.
Today, the Brazilian right may even think that red is the color of communists, but in the 1930s, fundamentalists associated this hue with the main icon of imperialism: himself, Santa Claus. The folkloric figure of the chubby old man dressed in red was popularized during the same decade, in advertisements for the very American Coca-Cola.
Integralism, a nationalist movement close to the Italian fascists, created Grandpa Índio in response. He was a little man “very friendly with the trees”, who wore bird feathers and distributed gifts to children, as described by journalist Christovam de Camargo in the December 25, 1934 edition of the late Correio da Manhã.
Christmas is this symbolic street market, where saints resurrect children, demons punish the wicked, witches distribute candy, and farmers fertilize the earth with non-liturgical methods, to remind us that sometimes the end of the year really sucks. And there is much more than that, if we want the next one to bear much fruit. Let 2026 come.
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