Baby Jesus

Put the baby down, Jul Tomten

I grew up in the States in a Swedish-American household. That meant, come Christmas, my brothers and I would receive gifts from our parents and Santa Claus and somebody else called Jul tomten, a beardy gnome that delivers gifts for Swedes during Christmas, known in Scandinavia as Jul ( = Yule in English).

I always thought that the spritely forest dude was a lot more original and interesting than that coke-drinking galoot that seemed to be ever-present and rapidly conquerng new territories to add to his domain.

Then I got to Latin America and found out that gifts are not brought by Santa, Father Chistmas, or any delightful local pagan figures, but rather by Baby Jesus.  Not Jesus. But, rather, Baby Jesus. Baby Jesus ? Didn't Baby Jesus cease to exist as soon as He had a Bar Mitzvah at the age of 13 and, thus, grew up ? Two thousand years ago.

So I did some very brief research. Apparently, the Christ-child is all Martin Luther's fault, uh, invention; he proposed the Christ-child (AKA Baby Jesus, Kid Jesus, Youngster Jesus, or Rugrat Jesus) in order to cockblock the Catholic gift-bearer Saint Nicholas, AKA Santa (anagramically known as Satan). And this Whippersnapper Jesus actually caught on in many Germanophone and Eastern-European countries and the vast majority of Latin America.

I get that religions and traditions and rituals and holidays are often chock-full of what a Brit might call ¨flapdoodle¨ or an American ¨baloney¨, and that true believers must suspend their disbelief and just have faith. But why, for Chrissakes, would He deliver presents 2000 years in the future on His own birthday ? Nah, for me, I´ll keep my tomten.