Santa Claus Is American

Do YOU know the names of Santa’s reindeer? Their number? Ask any American schoolchild, and he’ll tell you. Eight reindeer pull the sleigh: Dasher, followed by Dancer, Prancer and Vixen. Then Comet and Cupid, then Donder and Blitzen. Hold the applause and climb down the chimney.

Santa Claus is American. We’ve known this since Washington Irving created the character in 1809, and Coca-Cola popularized his lovely cloak and kindly manner more than a century later.

Each December 24, legend has it that families gather around the fir tree to read the poem “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,” written by Clement Clarke Moore in 1823. It was he who invented the flying sleigh. At the moment of landing on the snow-covered roof, Santa Claus prods his team, and if the speaker has a powerful voice, the names of the reindeer vibrate in the Milky Way.

Americans celebrate Christmas with a consummate professionalism. Non-believers only have to wait until January or take advantage of it by trying to explain that they are “Good without God,” as atheists who leased advertisements on buses are currently doing in Forth Worth, Texas.

Some find wit, like Supreme Court Judge Elena Kagan, if you believe a response she gave in June during her Senate confirmation hearings. “Where were you on Christmas Day?” the Republican Lindsey Graham asked her. “Like all Jews, I was probably in a Chinese restaurant,” she responded to laughs.

The United States is not a Christian nation, but in December, you wouldn’t know it. In Washington alone, last weekend, one could attend 30 or so Christmas concerts. Not to mention next weekend: Irish, Scottish, Lutheran Christmas … More than a half-dozen Nutcrackers.

It’s the inevitable end-of-year performance, neighborhood schools at the Washington Ballet. Every year, one asks oneself if the economic crisis hasn’t decreased enthusiasm. Not at all. The houses are still overloaded with wreaths or inflatable Santas. On lawns, lighted reindeer turn their heads. (A 9th reindeer appeared in 1939, the idea of a shrewd advertiser. It was Rudolf, recognizable by his red nose.)

All the malls have hired their Santa brigade. This year, Christmas is very “polarized,” economists have noted. Low-income households represented 33 percent of national consumption in 2006. Their share has fallen to 29 percent. Next to Tschaikovsky’s Christmas, there is Dickens. In the first, they rip apart the most expensive presents. In the second, they hurry out at midnight to buy milk for the baby’s bottle: That’s the hour when unemployment benefits are deposited into accounts.

The White House gives at least one reception per day. Every evening, in front of the East Gate, a single-file line of men in cocktail dress and women in high heels forms as soon as night falls. The wait is rewarded by a reception in the state parlors, where each president has his portrait: Blue Room, Red Room …

The Princeton Choir sings in the Grand Foyer. This year, Michelle Obama asked that ornaments from previous years be reused. For the Green Room, she chose recycled fir trees: They are made of newspaper painted golden. Everything is done the American way: Ninety-two volunteers from 24 states are in charge of the decorations. In return, they are invited to the season’s kick-off gala.

This year the First Lady indicated that more than 50,000 people will have been received at a holiday party. The guests are high-level bureaucrats, Congressional staff, print journalists, radio and TV, military families and the war-wounded. And, occasionally, old friends — faithful supporters like Edith Childs, the little lady from South Carolina who invented one of candidate Obama’s campaign slogans in 2007.

After winding through the hallways, the happy few are led into the diplomatic reception room, where the president shakes hands. Everything proceeds in a perfect ballet so that no second is lost, no more than one attempt at conversation made. The guests are pushed as much as presented by an officer in perpetual motion. “Enchantee,” says Michelle, in French, before the flood of the procession starts flowing again.

The presidential couple receives two guests per minute. A photographer immortalizes the moment. It’s the president’s end-of-year present: A photo that will be transformed into a greeting card and added to the collection that Americans love to display on their mantles starting at the beginning of December (hence their surprise at receiving greeting cards in January, when they have already put everything away).

In addition to reducing taxes, the START treaty, repealing the Army’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and revising strategy in Afghanistan, duty requires the president to shake some 50,000 hands in one month.