SHORT STORIES

Running close to Coke, McDonald’s, Vladimir Putin, and, of course, Trump.
Has there ever been a more successful campaign?

Every year it relaunches. Brighter, louder, undefeated in global reach. Undefeatable.
Few remember how it started. Fewer even care. Rome was in chaos. Mithras, Isis, Jupiter, and hundreds of local gods. The Crisis of the Third Century, said the historians. The crisis of too many gods. I think Moses said that. Or perhaps I did. My own crisis.

Aurelian, a soldier emperor, brilliant at optics and empire wide symbolism, promoted the state cult of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, a symbol that the empire itself was eternal. The festival of the Unconquered Sun became associated with 25 December, and the Sun became a patriotic emblem.

A real gesture of warmth and control. Long live the Sun.

A century later, not to be outdone, Constantine realised that feeding the Christians to lions, or even crucifying them, was no longer pragmatic. In a moment of pure political brilliance, he absorbed them. Everyone was happy. The believers gained imperial protection, the pagans kept their season of light, and the empire moved towards a unified calendar of meaning.

Then the northern upgrade. Folklore contributed a fur clad wanderer trudging from house to house in the snow, handing out bread loaves and good fortune. England liked the story. Oh, how very nice, they said. America industrialised it. Red coat, white trim, brand alignment complete. Turbo capitalism had found its saint.

From there it was pure logistics. A worldwide distribution system powered by reindeer, an unpaid labour force of elves, and a customer base measured in billions.
A seasonal monopoly with one hundred percent awareness.

How dumb do we really think our children are? Every December we sell them the same story. A bearded intruder who breaks into houses at night, rewarding obedience with gifts, punishing disbelief with absence. And they believe it, because every adult plays along. The first conspiracy we teach them.

It could almost make sense if those who celebrated Christmas were Christians. At least then it would be faith in action, a ritual, a symbol, a myth with meaning. But the rest of the world? The rational, the secular, the scientifically enlightened? They all join in too, hanging socks on radiators and pretending not to notice.
Christmas for Christians, fine. But Christmas for everyone? That is a plague of belief without content. A global trance.

Watch how it works. Generation after generation, children are trained, at home, at school, in shopping malls, to suspend reason and participate. Teachers rehearse the carols, parents stage the lie, and every advertisement completes the catechism. It is not faith. It is conditioning.
Soft, smiling, sugar coated indoctrination.
The most effective belief system ever designed, because nobody calls it one.

Somehow, it conquered the planet. Christmas without borders. Snow cannons in Dubai. LED reindeer in Shanghai. Plastic Santas nodding gently in the shopping malls of Nairobi. Even Osama bin Laden, in one of those surreal archive photos, sits cross legged before a twinkling tree, proof that no ideology is entirely immune to decoration.
In South Africa, plastic trees melt softly on front porches while people knock on doors asking for their Christmas box. In Mali, the day becomes a drum festival. In Papua New Guinea, they say, the neighbour sometimes replaced the turkey.

One myth, infinite franchises.

So yes, the most successful campaign ever. Faith repackaged as fantasy. Belief distributed free of charge. Renewed annually with guaranteed demand.

Even the atheists can’t resist it.

Merry Christmas™