Many of the Christmas traditions that are familiar to all of us can be traced back hundreds of years to their origin. Most, perhaps not surprisingly, have their start thanks to the Christian religion. And so it is with one of the happiest – or most traumatic – Christmas traditions, visiting Santa Claus and sitting on his knee while reading off your list of all the goodies you want him to bring on Christmas morning. Getting stuff is, after all, the whole point of the Christmas holiday.

At first brush you’d think this tradition was an American one, deeply rooted in a society that worships the gods of consumerism with a heathy nod to the current sour grapes Republican loser’s belief that half the country is just in it for the free stuff they get from the government. Which makes sense. Every greedy little child (and adult) starts their Christmas wish list off with the rather demanding phrase, “ I want’. Responsible parents of course do not condone or encourage this type of behavior in their children and tell them their family is Jewish until the kids reach an age where they can learn the lesson that you have to work for what you want.

Thai children, on the other hand, are taught that if you willingly sit on an old fat farang’s lap you can get whatever you want without working for it. Though you may have to convince the farang that you would work for it, Not that you’d ever actually have to. But then that’s a different tradition and for today’s post we’re sticking to those that have their roots in Christianity. And as with most holiday traditions the practice of sitting on Santa’s knee goes back to religious beliefs of yore. Specifically the English Reformation and another fat man who wasn’t known to be quite so jolly.

Several hundred years ago in a tiny little land far, far away, King Henry VIII was in a foul mood yet again. Pissed that the Pope wouldn’t let him dump his ugly Spanish wife in favor of a younger and newer model who wasn’t growing facial hair, Henry decided to invent his own religion where god would let him have whatever nookie he wanted. Back then Kings could get away that kind of shit. The only problem was a minor bit of country-wide housekeeping: Henry had to change his Catholic priests into Angelican ones. Some of the holy fathers didn’t realize that royal decree trumps faith and put up a fuss.

Now you’d think when you are a King you could just do whatever you want. Or at most would only have to come up with some flimsy excuse to justify your actions. Like telling your subjects the Pope had weapons of mass destruction and you needed to annihilate his ass. But political spin had not yet been discovered back then. So Henry was forced to build a consensus in favor of wiping out the Catholic faith. And as we all known, nothing builds consensus like a little torture.

In those days the Roman Catholic Church was almost as rich as the King. Religion was a way of life and believing in god was an expensive proposition for the people of England. To get married you had to pay the church; to get a child baptized – which you needed to be if you were to go to Heaven – you had to pay a monk; you even had to pay the Church to bury someone on their land – which you had to do as your soul could only go to Heaven if you were buried on Holy Ground. You’d think the masses would have been happy about Henry’s decision to dump the church, but when you’ve convinced a people that the god you chose is the one they need to worship, they tend to balk when you change your mind. Inspired by the scent of young pussy, Henry came up with a two point plan to win the hearts and minds of his subjects, which would help him win the body of that little slut Anne Boleyn.

First, he decreed that all the Catholic churches needed to be ransacked and looted. Any gold or silver found during the renovations had to be sent to him. But everything else was up for grabs. A smart move on Henry’s part because even back then 47% of the people were just in it for what they could get for free and the idea of redistributing the wealth was just fine with them. That part of his plan, which he called The Dissolution worked like a charm. It is also where the official term for divorce – the dissolution of marriage – comes from as does the practice of soon to be ex-wives ransacking and looting every penny their soon to be ex-husbands have or will ever have. For Henry, dealing with the hold outs, however, took a bit more finesse.

#8 figured that if he could get some of the more stubborn high-ranking priests to agree to replacing their religion with his and naming him the Supreme Head of the Church, he’d get to quickly dump his ugly Spanish wife. Torture was big in those days. But Henry knew that while a few turns on the rack would convince any priest to find a new god, selling their story when all they could do is lay there in a bloody heap and moan would be a difficult proposition. So he turned to his favorite royal torturer, Sir Dick of Cheney, and demanded he come up with a new method that didn’t leave visible damage. Or missing appendages, or sore anuses. Waterboarding, obviously, would have been the answer but back then like the French of today the English were not real big on bathing.

Instead Sir Dick devised a new form of torture that became known as ‘sitting on the Cardinal’s knee.’ The unrepentant priest would first be tied to a chair. Then, an exceptionally obese member of the torture squad – traditionally selected from the House of Oprah – would jump onto the priest usually landing his fat ass right on top of the victim’s knees. Which if done correctly not only scored a 10 but fractured the priests knees. And as with all good cures, the procedure was repeated as necessary. Which didn’t take long. Needless to say when a 300+ lb blimpo is bouncing up and down on your broken bones you’ll give him whatever he wants, just so long as he’ll get the hell off you.

The torture worked like a charm, Henry got the priestly support he needed, bid a not so fond hasta la vista to his ugly Spanish wife, married his little temptress – who taught him that it was far more easy to just behead spouses you tired of rather than forcing your entire country to join a new religion – and managed to wipe out his country’s 1.1 trillion dollar deficit thanks to all the Church’s riches he added to the royal coffer. And parents throughout the land began using the threat of sitting on the Cardinal’s knee to make their unruly rug rats behave.

Nobody likes to abandon a good threat, even when it is one using a sliding scale of different colors that no one really understands. Cardinals in their rich red robes became less and less of an influence in England as time passed and the socialist government began providing cradle to grave care for its citizens. Unruly children, unfortunately, still existed. Slowly, the tradition of the sitting on the Cardinal’s knees morphed into a Christmas holiday season threat of sitting on Santa’s lap. Which had the side benefit of providing jobs for unemployed members of NAMBLA. Today the practice isn’t so much about threatening children as it is about teaching them how effective torture can be in getting what you want. Every obese little kid knows that all it takes is one or two bounces on a department store Santa’s knees, and he’ll be screaming for mercy and agreeing to bring you everything on your Christmas wish list.

Now you know where the tradition of sitting on Santa’s lap came from, as well as why red is the color of choice for the Republican Party.

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