As households across the world quietly deploy presents from St. Nick, Kate Beaton, author of the charming historical webcomic Hark, a Vagrant! (previ ously) remembers the tradition in a bittersweet light. In spite of venerable op-eds (and their animated offspring), such pain moves some to question whether parents should teach their children to believe in Santa Claus at all.
posted by Rhaomi on Dec 24, 2009 - 25 comments

Christmas in the London Blitz, 1940; Making Christmas Crackers, 1910; Santa Claus, 1898; Christmas is coming, 1951: short films from the British Film Institute's wonderful Youtube Channel (including excellent playlists), which you can also explore through Google Earth using the kmz file found here.
posted by Rumple on Dec 24, 2008 - 4 comments

"In the Late December" (MP3 link), by Greg van Eekhout, is a Nebula award-nominated story about Santa Claus and the end of the universe, and is Escape Pod #138. (By the way, this is a very dark story -- there's no sex or violence but this probably isn't suitable for kids, where "kids" is defined as a stereotypical aggregate of child-like characteristics. Yours may be different.)
posted by JHarris on Dec 25, 2007 - 14 comments

Secret lives: Santa Claus Steady Mobbin' - I fear this will lead to no good.
posted by madamjujujive on Dec 22, 2007 - 12 comments

Rare Exports, Inc. They deliver the impeccable, well-mannered, and extremely rare original Finnish Father Christmases to nearly 150 countries every Christmas. Exclusively. [YouTube, NSFW.] [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Nov 15, 2007 - 15 comments

Santa'd: Flickr's new holiday Easter egg.
posted by brundlefly on Dec 13, 2006 - 36 comments

Vote Chris Christmas Rodriguez for Santa. [MI]
posted by bluedaniel on Dec 6, 2005 - 7 comments

Psychedelic Santa Claus. "Modern Christmas traditions are based on ancient mushroom-using shamans." [Via J-Walk blog.]
posted by homunculus on Dec 22, 2003 - 15 comments

Sober Santa. Too much politics today, not enough Christmas fun. Here's a drunk Santa game from b3ta. Pretty tough once you get going.
posted by Stan Chin on Dec 12, 2003 - 12 comments

Santa Claus, elusive jolly old elf, has finally been located by someone curious enough (in both senses of the word) to use FedEx to track him down. (The page I linked to here only tells half the story; click that link down on the left to get FedEx's tracking page.)
posted by wanderingmind on Dec 6, 2002 - 20 comments

Santarchy!
posted by plinth on Dec 12, 2001 - 12 comments

Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and the US Military is watching him. It's NORAD's annual "Santa Tracking" PR campaign, reporting that Father Xmas appears to be flight testing his reindeer earlier this year (a prudent move, if you've seen "Olive, the Other Reindeer", my new favorite Holiday TV trifle). No Grinch sightings, however (he's gotten enough publicity, thank you). Now, the only unanswered question is: Will W.'s proposed Missile Defense System (TM) pose a risk to the Clausman? (And are Rogue Countries (TM) making missiles shaped like sleighs?)
posted by wendell on Dec 21, 2000 - 2 comments

The Dutch foreign ministry tells you all about Sinterklaas, the Dutch predecessor of Santa Claus (see also Tsja).
posted by tsja on Dec 5, 2000 - 0 comments