Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus… in Star Wars

While Life Day will all the time be Star Wars’ most well-known vacation, there are extra. Many extra. There’s a whole galaxy stuffed with celebrations, festivals, and observances together with, considerably surprisingly, the planet Aargau’s Take Your Daughter to Work Day. And, whereas it’s unknown if Space Jesus was born within the Star Wars galaxy to absolve Ponda Baba (et al.) for his sins, there’s a Christmas—as a result of there’s additionally a Santa Claus.

Please don’t suppose for a minute that this proper jolly previous elf exists within the new, Disney-approved Star Wars canon. In reality, Santa barely exists within the previous Expanded Universe, having appeared ever-so-briefly in Dark Horse’s remaining Knights of the Old Republic comedian, as a patron at Goodvalor’s Little Bivoli, a sequence restaurant on Coruscant. That was greater than 3,600 years earlier than the occasions of A New Hope, however Santa may be seen in 1993’s Star Wars: X-Wing online game, set in the course of the authentic trilogy, on the deck of the Mon Calamari ship the Independence if you happen to performed the sport on December 25. The solely different itemizing that Wookieepedia has for Santa is the Ralph McQuarrie’s cowl for West End’s role-playing recreation complement Star Wars: Adventure Journal 8, which options Yoda—or a member of his species, because the wiki needs you to know—dressed head to toe in a Santa outfit, and a sack of toys slung over his shoulder.

However, the most effective proof for Santa’s existence comes from Christmas within the Stars: The Star Wars Christmas Album, produced by Meco in 1980, and that includes the dulcet tones of Anthony Daniels as C-3PO. The premise is that Artoo, Threepio, and Chewbacca are hanging out in a manufacturing facility the place droids are making presents for an “S. Claus.” You might be forgiven for pondering the trio has one way or the other been whisked to our Earth, as C-3PO mentions Albert Einstein, H.G. Wells, and the nation of Japan within the second music, “Bells, Bells, Bells”, to an more and more bewildered R2-D2. But why, then, is S. Claus’ manufacturing facility staffed by droids, and why do they particularly point out the Christmas presents they’re giving Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo?

If you need to take this manner too severely, and I most actually do, it appears extra believable that the Star Wars galaxy has its personal gift-dispensing Santa—or, since Star Wars takes place a very long time in the past, in some unspecified time in the future Santa relocated to our galaxy and introduced Christmas with him. Because the album doesn’t function the galaxy’s first Christmas, because the droids particularly point out they acquired Chewbacca a comb for Christmas final yr within the album’s Top 40 vacation hit, “What Do You Get a Wookiee for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb)”. The reply, by the way, is “a brush,” which isn’t solely simply as crappy a gift as a comb, however method worse than what Artoo will get for Christmas, which is a music composed particularly for him titled “R2-D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” that includes a younger Jon Bon Jovi on lead vocals. (I used to be about to say perhaps the Earth rock star should have been transported to the opposite galaxy, however I simply realized Jon Bon Jovi is an almost good title for a Star Wars character, so there was most likely one already there.)

Things get exponentially extra complicated in “A Christmas Sighting (‘Twas the Night Before Christmas)” the place the droids reveal S. Claus makes all of them go away the manufacturing facility earlier than he arrives to select up the toys, that means they’ve by no means seen their employer (grasp?) within the flesh, which is extraordinarily bizarre conduct. When one of many unnamed droids means that perhaps S. Claus doesn’t exist, Threepio pipes up that he’s seen the person personally simply final yr. But C-3PO specifies when Santa arrives, he’s already coated in soot—earlier than he picks up and distributes the toys the droids assembled. Is Santa doing recon? Does he not clear himself between Christmases? Does he have a chimney kink?

This is adopted by the ultimate music on the album, “The Meaning of Christmas,” by which S. Claus inexplicably visits the droids in his toy manufacturing facility for the very first time. But S. Claus shouldn’t be the rotund, jolly fellow C-3PO spied the earlier yr—he’s the slim, beardless son of Santa Claus, and he helps ship toys to all the kids of the galaxy on Space Christmas. There’s actually not a lot to say after that, besides when the droids ask in the event that they’ll be receiving presents, S. Claus tells them their reward is “the happiness your toys bring to children,” which is a few severe bullshit.

Again, Christmas within the Stars was no extra linked to the Star Wars Expanded Universe than the Holiday Special was—the truth is, it’s arguably much less so, because the Special had the decency to not point out something terrestrial (though that’s the one decency it has). And even Santa’s temporary appearances within the Expanded Universe have been jettisoned when Disney rebooted the canon, so I suppose it’s higher to say sure, Virginia, there was a Santa Claus. But if the brand new Star Wars can reinstate parts of the execrable Holiday Special, why not convey again Santa to offer lumps of carbonite to the unhealthy little Siths of the galaxy? It actually wouldn’t be probably the most ludicrous factor the franchise has ever performed.

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