Over time however, St. Nicholas has morphed into a symbol of something quite different. Something dark and dastardly. His legacy has become one used to promote the eternal goodness of consumption and to encourage such consumption as a kind of social balm, a magical elixir that resolves all social disconnection and existential emptiness come the end of the year. His literal unhagiographical transformation illustrates the ideological and even mythical depths capitalism will gladly descend, just to hawk the moral virtue of selling alongside the moral necessity of buying.

This metamorphosis finds its final form in the enigmatic Father Christmas figure we call Santa Claus.

Santa's portrayal in modern media is a case study in propaganda. For example, the idea that the gifts one receives at Christmas are based on a ledger of good and bad – on merit – which Santa adjudicates, and not just on how many peasant boys your great, great grandfather murdered to get half the land in your town which allowed your parents to inherit an abundance of wealth with which they purchased you those three new Tonka trucks that one time, is stupid. The idea that we live in such a world, where rewards and punishments are handed out fairly, and not just in direct correlation with how much money your daddy has – that you think you actually deserve because of the amount of emotional abuse you have to put up with – is absurd.

Alongside this, there is the idea too that the equal distribution of such rewards and punishments – for Santa to deliver all the presents to the good children and all the coal to the bad ones – requires some incomprehensible feat of magic. Santa possesses an inhuman ability to travel the world at lightening speeds; his feats are supported by a cast of supernatural, flying reindeer; and then from where does he get this infinite supply of coal? The subtle, underlying premise here is that the equal distribution of kindness and justice is impossible in the real, nonmagical reality we live in. That reality is called capitalism.

And, as aforementioned, there is the most important propaganda point embedded in the narrative of Santa Claus. The one most beneficial to the capitalist class in any immediate sense: the inherent goodness of buying.

Santa’s ability to encourage buying is unparalleled. Not only is he used to force parents to buy children all the gifts they can afford, he is used to make parents buy each other gifts in order to keep the act up for fear of being the monster who reveals it’s all a charade.

Even as one grows up and the lies are revealed, Santa’s spirit cannot be repressed: friends must buy friends things, siblings must buy siblings things, and eventually, as it all turns full circle, the children must buy their parents things for the rest of their lives.

But Santa is not just used to corral everyone into capitalist Valhalla, the shopping center, to aid in the production of obscene profits. The capitalist class now profit off his image itself. Santa has become a commodity. And not simply through Santa-themed bobbles for the Christmas tree, or Santa-themed Christmas cards, or Santa-themed lawn decorations and key rings. For Christmas, you can gift children (and adults) toys of Santa himself. The utter absurdity of this idea, of Santa delivering children toys of himself, would be unacceptable in any normal society. But not in a world where narcissism and blatant self-promotion are constantly encouraged. That is, in capitalism.

His presence (it’s not even the real Santa usually) is even used to attract young, feeble minds to malls and shopping centers across the world. Capitalism’s ideology and audacious propaganda runs so deep that it has convinced parents to bring their children to visit a strange, old man, historically connected to the Catholic clergy, with the goal of sitting on his lap.

The idea though, of actually meeting the affable old man in the red suit who delivers all those gifts and presents, is simply irresistible for the brainwashed child inside all of us.

But think about it. An old, bearded man, well-dressed and delivering presents to everyone – doesn’t that sound like a certain someone? Doesn’t that sound like a myth particularly suited to one specific mode of political theory? It’s very egalitarian. Very idealistic. Socialistic, even. Communistic, maybe. It seems almost, dare we say it, very Marxist.

The parallels are uncanny.

Take Santa’s criteria for delivering presents - the 'naughty' or 'nice' rubric. As discussed above, this is very uncapitalistic. Capitalism rewards brute force, self-serving cruelty, and nepotistic gain. It doesn’t reward its spoils on the basis of moral behavior, of niceness or naughtiness. Communism though, with its gallows and dead landlords, its proportioning of necessities like housing and food based on deed and need (as well as hopefully on how good of a pro-communist website you make) is in direct agreement with Santa here.

And the more you think about it, the clearer the similarities become.

Santa’s color palette, for instance, is unmistakable, bold and bodacious. It is also completely in line with the colors of communism. The predominance of red, with white for contrast and the little bands of black, anarchisty trimmings all over. He is basically a cosplaying, color-coded Marx. To add to that, Santa even has the beard. And not some half-hearted, Chavez or Guevara beard either. A full-blown, nineteenth century, thick and luscious, Marx and Engels beard.

But it doesn’t stop there.

What about that classic quality of communists across the world that Santa too possesses: a relative lack of concern for animal rights? There is Santa’s drinking of milk – clearly a modern symbol of Santa’s insatiable desire to reclaim far-right imagery and destroy fascism. Santa even runs a small factory of indentured laborers, just like Engels.

Thus, Santa Claus’ spiritual roots of just and egalitarian distribution and dressing like a camp Karl Marx undeniably connect him to movements of the far-left. And what better far-left movement for Santa to be a part of than Marxmas? Therefore, despite the bastardization of his image, Santa Claus isn’t a foe to be overcome in the struggle for Marxmas, for a just 25th of December. He is a friend to be embraced.

It is true though, sadly, that Marxmas, the prefigurative celebration of a future world to be, would likely be the end for the Santa of our childhoods, and his use to promote the profiteering evils of capitalism. But perhaps it doesn’t have to be the end for Santa Claus himself. In the classic dialectical formulation, quantitative change leads to qualitative change. But what would such a qualitative change for Santa Claus look like?

Well, boys and girls and everyone else beyond and in between, let me introduce to you the official mascot of Marxmas: Comrade Claus.