I think the Santa Claus mythology needs to be updated to make it more Calvinist. This easy believism of Santa, where you can just choose to believe and he rewards your niceness is nonsense. No one is nice! That’s a heresy fest right there! So I’m going to fix it to include the Calvinistic TULIP and some James White approved Divine Determinism!

Santa Determinism

Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, from where he controls everything in the universe. His elves obey his every command, including those that rebelled against him and became evil dark elves, and the dark elf Saruman who tempted the first child onto the naughty list. He sees all, and he controls all. He doesn’t just see you when you’re sleeping, he decides when you sleep and he decides when (and if) you are going to wake up. He decides if you cry or pout, or if you’re going to be good for goodness sake.

Total Naughtiness

The children of the world are all evil, born with only naughty intent. Santa used his special Santa magic to make sure that ALL of the children of the world are naughty, and that they are born hating him. SO COMPLETE is their naughtiness, that the only thing that want to do is be naughty, and they can’t even want to be nice. You can try and explain it to them, maybe by letting them read “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” but they are born unable to understand Santa or being Nice. The desires of their hearts are naughty continually. There are none who seek niceness, no, not one.

Nice List Election

Before the world began, Santa made his “Naughty” and “Nice” lists. While some people think that Santa watches you and judges you on your choice to be nice or your choice to be naughty, and then puts you on the list you have earned with your choices, the truth is, Santa picks which list you are going to end up on LONG before you are born and long before you have done anything either naughty or nice. Everyone starts out naughty (even the kids on the Nice List), because Santa used his Christmas magic to insure you are born incurably evil. But sometimes, and for reasons only he knows, Santa takes kids who are naughty (but whose names are already on the Nice list), and he makes them nice. Only the kids on the Nice list get presents. The kids on the Naughty List get stuffed into a burlap sack and beaten with reeds. Santa’s not messing around. Those naughty kids are getting what they deserve.

Irresistible Presents and Limited Stockings

One of the first gifts a kid on the Nice list will get is the gift of BELIEF. As a naughty child, he doesn’t believe in Santa and he doesn’t even want to. He hates Santa. But then Santa slides down his chimney in the dark of night, while the children are asleep, and he pours the gift of BELIEF into their hearts so that they wake full of belief in Santa! Once they have received this gift, they are capable of seeing that they have been naughty and they can sometimes be nice. For the first time, they WANT to be nice.

No child can resist the gift of BELIEF. His or her heart is immediately changed from that moment on. Some people ask, “Why doesn’t Santa bring the gift of BELIEF to ALL of the boys and girls so they can all be on the Nice List?” and the reason is because he doesn’t want to. While Santa has a general love for all children, he really loves the nice children, and he hates those rotten naughty kids whose names he put on the naughty list. This is right, because, after all, they are on the naughty list. “But,” some may ask, “why doesn’t he deliver the gift of BELIEF to all of the children so they can ALL be nice?” and the answer is, Santa doesn’t actually have enough gift boxes of BELIEF to give one to every boy and girl. He only made enough of those special gifts to cover all of the boys and girls who he put on the Nice list. Imagine what a big failure he would be if he had a bunch of boxes of BELIEF left over that naughty kids didn’t want to open on Christmas morning! No, he hates those kids and doesn’t even WANT them to believe in him. So not only does he refuse to bring them that gift, he didn’t even make one for them. He wants them to be stuffed into a burlap sack and beaten with reeds. They deserve it.

Perseverance of the Nice

There seems to be some disagreement about the Perseverance of the Nice. Santa once said “If you are on the Nice list, you will be Nice for the rest of your life.” Or something like that. So either he meant, once you receive the gift of BELIEF you will always want to be Nice, or he meant, if you want to stay on the nice list, then you HAD BETTER stay Nice or you will discover that you were never on the Nice list at all. The debate rages on.

Either you better avoid being naughty, because naughtiness will put you on the Naughty list for all of eternity (and you will be stuffed into a burlap sack and beaten with reeds), or you can relax because once you believe in Santa, that will make you Nice enough to stay on the list forever. After all, you were already on the Nice list when you were born, so you can probably be pretty darn naughty and not have to worry about it. I guess it depends on which of Santa’s elves you ask. But then, whatever you do, you will do it because Santa makes you. His control is absolute. I guess you had better just hope he decided to make you stay nice so you don’t discover that you were never actually Nice at all. I’ve heard bad things about how itchy burlap can be.