“Chesterton’s defense of Father Christmas reveals a deeper truth: Christ’s birth conquers every winter of the world.”
Joseph Pearce, National Catholic Register. December 18, 2024.
… Having defended myself, and Chesterton, from any pharisaical guardians of the feast, I’m going to risk the ire of lovers of Christmas by confessing that I prefer good old Father Christmas to that new-fangled Santa Claus fellow, the latter of whom strikes me as something of an interloper. Chesterton never wrote about Santa Claus, nor, for that matter, did Tolkien or C. S. Lewis; they wrote about Father Christmas. Nor is this a question of mere semantics. There is a real difference between Santa Claus and Father Christmas which should not be overlooked, even if they have been melded in our modern minds into something or someone akin to a synonym.
For one thing, Father Christmas is English whereas Santa Claus is American — and heaven forbid that anyone should suggest that Englishmen and Americans are in any way synonymous! …
Catholic Critique 