Santa comes from far away, from the time he was Greek and his name was St. Nicholas, and lived in a city that ended up in Turkey, until he reached Europe at the time of Christianization of Germanic tribes, which much later would bequeath the trees decorated with garlands, as well as the plump and kind-hearted character, apparently a legacy from Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. The sleigh didn’t come from Lapland: it’s the contribution of an anonymous poet from New York in the late 1800s. May everyone who can afford it be Santa this Christmas, may them fill the sack with gifts and reach out to so many who need them. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the sleigh, the metro, by bus or gondola, like here in Venice. Let it be slow and by foot, and let him use the cellphone to get directions, but let Santa arrive through each one of us.
