Yes, West Virginia, There is a Santa Claus
Yes, West Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he’s running for president.
This jolly old elf, though, doesn’t live at the North Pole but near Lake Tahoe, and was known as Thomas O’Connor until 2005, when his resemblance to Father Christmas helped persuade him to legally change his name. (That, and the fact that O’Connor found he was much more popular and money was easier to come by with the name Santa Claus).
Claus is one of 14 write-in presidential candidates registered with the West Virginia secretary of state’s office, a veritable bumper crop thanks to the state’s easy registration rules.
“All they have to do is file a form at least 42 days before the election,” said Jason Williams, manager of the elections division in the secretary of state’s office. “Santa Claus filed his form and it was notarized, so he’s registered along with everyone else.”
This breaking news is just the latest publicity stunt for O’Connor. He uses his legally changed name annually to draw attention to himself and to make money. He has several websites using the name and image of Santa Claus — the real one, mind you — hawking everything from diet plans to books.
No one has ever seen him in a flying sleigh though.
Millions Refuse to Wait for Black Friday to Start Shopping
More than one in three holiday shoppers — or 62.3 million adult consumers — report they begin holiday shopping before Thanksgiving, according to new data from Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI).
Just under thirty-six percent of holiday shoppers say they begin shopping between Thanksgiving and December 15th and close to 26% start their shopping between December 16th and 23rd. Approximately 2% of holiday shoppers don’t begin their holiday shopping until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
Publicity Starved Santa Threatens Facebook
Santa has Facebook on the naughty list.
Oh, he’s not the real Santa. He’s the publicity hungry Santa who since June has legally changed his name to Santa Claus and has used his position as a monk to draw attention to himself and his many schemes of using the image of Santa to make a buck.
Using his new legal name of Santa Claus (he is from California, of course), he signed up on Facebook and quickly grew in popularity. After all, who wouldn’t want to be a friend of a dude in white beard named Santa?
In the month or so since he joined the popular social network, he’s approved 5,000 friends. He could have easily gone viral by Thanksgiving — when everyone wants to be “friends” with Santa regardless of whether they deserve to be. He could become the most popular person in the world on Facebook.
But unfortunately for Santa, 5,000 friends is all anyone gets on Facebook. To add anyone new, the man who says his real legal name is Santa Claus must remove someone on his list.
That upsets the man who runs the Santa Claus Foundation, which he describes as an advocacy group for children.
“It’s hard for me to believe that Facebook would want to disappoint that many folks who might enjoy being Santa’s friends,” Claus said in an e-mail. “I’m not selling anything; so, I don’t understand the problem.” [Perhaps Santa has forgotten about his "diet plan" he's hawking online on one of his many websites]
He wants Facebook to make an exception for him and he’s not above thinking about rough tactics, noting a report that Facebook lost users in the United Kingdom earlier this year.
“[I] can only imagine what could happen, should word will get around that it is now severely limiting the number of friends Santa Claus can have,” Claus said. “Would this make Facebook the new Scrooge or Grinch?” [Not only is this Santa incredibly shameless in his exploitation of a saint he is also a thug. The real Santa never threatens anyone]
Those are harsh words given that Santa already got personal help from Facebook, since the site blocks people from registering names like Darth Vader or the Easter Bunny. But Santa was able to prove he was legally Santa Claus and a tech overrode the ban, making Santa Claus the Santa Claus on Facebook.
Facebook says the 5,000 friend limit applies to all users.
