In a recent discussion with my partner discussing Christmas’s future, a question came up that divided us: what place, if any, should Santa Claus have in our leftist household, if it is ever populated with children?

At first blush, there would seem to be a strong left case against any mention of St Nick. For one thing, he doesn’t exist, and his purported gift-distributing vehicle violates basic laws of Newtonian Physics as well as the fundamentals of reindeer physiology. And the Left has, throughout its history, fervently embraced science and disdained superstition — see Karl Marx’s deep esteem for Charles Darwin, for starters.

Then there is the issue of the surplus value appropriated from elvish workers working in subzero conditions at Santa’s arctic toy factory, an issue previously explored at length in Jacobin.