With Christmas quickly approaching, I have had Santa on my mind almost non-stop over the past week. And I have reached a philosophical impasse. It has been known, since time immemorial, that Santa Claus is watching all of us year-round and keeping tabs on how good we are, placing us on his lists as either good or bad. Assuming we make it to the good list, and since not all children receive the same type and number of gifts, or even gifts equal in cumulative monetary value, it stands to reason that any disparity in those gifts must result from exactly how good we are, as compared to other children. For instance, if we are polite, do well in school, help others and the like, we should receive superior gifts to say, those children who barely make onto the good list. So my question is this: if Santa is really keeping track of all these children and how good they are during the year and rewards them proportionately based on how good they have been, then why do all the rich kids get better presents?
Let's take my fourth grade class as a case study. Last year, my friend Mike Donnelly received a gold star in class for good behavior every single day. He was always polite to the teacher and all of our classmates. He helps his parents around the house and is a generally all around good kid. His only shortcoming may be that he is not the most intelligent, but that is never listed as a criterion for the good list, so this matter is negligible . Now let's tally up what he got for Christmas last year: socks, blue jeans, candy in his stocking and a Nintendo DS. Not a bad Christmas, but for such a good kid I would expect something more substantial. His father is an accountant and his mother a teacher, for reference.
Now compare him to Charles "Chaz" Winthrop Archibald, III. His father is a lobbyist, his mother is a socialite, from what I can tell. Chaz received gold stars on barely 1/4 of the schools days last year. He was consistently rude to our teacher and classmates. He never shares, throws temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way, and generally regards all of us as peasants. Further, his grades are atrocious - he can barely spell anything over two syllables and can't multiply to save his life. By all measures, I'd say he deserved a lump of coal at best. But let's look at a small sampling of what he found under the tree last year: XBox 360 fully loaded with a dozen games, Cannondale bicycle, new laptop, and a trip to Europe with his family.
How do we account for the disparity in gifts? Is Chaz doing charity work outside of school that none us knows about to make up for his poor behavior in the big man's eyes? I don't think so, he's not the type to help the homeless, sickly or elderly. As he readily admits, the only reason he even speaks to his grandmother is because she pays him $100 a visit. Am I missing something, or is the only logical explanation that Santa likes wealthy kids better than the rest of us? Are they somehow inherently better than us? Does being rich make you implicitly good? Or did they get placed on some sort of special list, on top of receiving preferential treatment in literally every other facet of life? It makes no sense - Santa is supposed to be the great equalizer, not caring if we are rich or poor and loving us just the same. But in reality, it looks like he gives gifts based entirely on how much money your parents have. Is it possible that the wealthy are bribing Santa? Has he been corrupted too? I certainly hope not, but there has to be some plausible explanation behind why Chaz receives a Mercedes PowerWheels after pushing Sara off of the jungle gym and I receive Yahtzee after receiving the 4th grade science award. Perhaps, there is some direct correlation between . . . wait, what's that mom? Oh. I see. Son of a bitch. Santa's not real. Sorry to have wasted all of your time; mystery solved. I'm off to take up juvenile delinquency.
No comments:
Post a Comment