Unpopular Opinion: Jesus Should Take Over Santa’s Route This Year

Art by Ryan Klemek

Let’s face it: Santa is extremely high-risk for COVID. I know he’s magical and all that, but with this new omicron variant, I just don’t think it’s a good idea for him to be going into every single house in the entire world.

So, who should he tap to fill in for him? For my money, there’s no better choice than Jesus Christ himself. I realize it’s the guy’s birthday, but he’s really the only person who can pull it off.

Health
Santa is a morbidly obese smoker who eats nothing but cookies and is, like, a million years old. I guess we don’t know his exact age, but if he’s actually St. Nicholas (as he sometimes claims to be), then he was born in 270 AD. He certainly looks to be at least 85.

Jesus, having been born in the Year Zero, is technically even older than Santa, but he seems to have been preserved forever in the body of a 33-year-old. And if church statues are any indication, he takes damn good care of himself. I mean, the guy is totally ripped. Crosses were made out of solid pine and must have weighed hundreds of pounds, yet he managed to drag one for miles through a sweltering desert. Now, that’s what I call “Cross-fit.”

We also know that he eats mostly bread and fish, which means he’s getting his whole grains and Omega-3s.

A Dangerous Job
Running the world’s biggest toy workshop is a stressful job. Santa has thousands of elves working thousands of hours a week (time works differently in The North Pole) making millions of toys. He has to oversee quality control, worry about supply chain issues, and deal with labor unions constantly threatening to strike. On top of that, he has to maintain a list of all the good and bad children in the world. If it was just the Christians, it might be manageable, but there are billions of secular kids who also celebrate Christmas, and they demand puzzles and video game consoles and iPhones. And I never thought about it before, but I guess Santa also has to worry about intellectual property laws. I mean, how is he allowed to make iPhones?

After 365 days of running a huge business, Santa then has to load up a reindeer-powered sled and fly across the world distributing the loot. He’s got to be going faster than the speed of light, and at that elevation in the open air, it has to be nearly impossible to breathe. The fact that he’s managed to survive all these years is a miracle, and it’s only a matter of time before he suffers a massive asthma and/or heart attack.

Jesus, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as stressed out. Sure, he has millions of prayers coming at him nonstop, but it’s obvious that he’s not really listening to all of them. In fact, he’s been pretty hands-off in general when it comes to running the world. We could argue that maybe he should be doing more to promote the stability of the planet, but the point is he seems to have a lot of time on his hands. Clearly, he spends much of that time in the gym, but he can afford to skip a day to help Santa out.

Super-spreader
There’s no getting around the fact that Christmas is going to be a super-spreader catastrophe this year, and whoever is tasked with delivering all the gifts is going to play a major role in the huge COVID surge that is sure to follow. If asked, I’m sure most kids would say it’s worth the risk to be able to celebrate an as-close-to-normal Christmas as possible — especially after these last two crazy years they’ve had to endure. While we may not be able to stop the spread, we can at least make sure Santa is still with us when the smoke finally clears and things go back to the way they were. Jesus Christ made the ultimate sacrifice when he allowed himself to be executed so he could forgive our sins (I’m still not exactly sure how that worked, but it sure was nice of him). If he was willing to do that to save all mankind, I’m sure he’ll be willing to give up one measly birthday so that people everywhere can celebrate his birth without worrying that their greed might kill Santa.

If only Superman were real…