It’s autumn again, and soon weekends will be filled with harvest festivals, Oktoberfest beer, and contemplation of Halloween costumes, strategic trick-or-treat routes and enough candy to turn onlookers diabetic. But soon after the last pumpkins have been carved into frightening faces, or thrown in the backyard mulch, the nation will turn from secular celebrations to religious holidays, beginning with the annual disruption of Thanksgiving gatherings by discounted television and video game systems. Some lucky shoppers won’t merely have to imagine trampling an opponent on the football field or shooting an enemy—the past few years are replete with stories of such real-life drama during all-night shopping binges.

But once mere mortals have maxed out their credit cards and returned to sleep, other traditions awaken. I’m speaking, of course, about the putative war on Christmas which, while maintaining the same themes it has in recent years—opposition to religious scenes on government property, America’s lax moral stature, forgetting the true meaning of Christmas—last year experienced the additional dispute over Santa Claus’ ethnicity.

Some pundits asked listeners to imagine how portraying Santa as black would change our understanding of him, perhaps broadening perspectives. Meanwhile, the controversy over the racial implications of Zwarte Piet continued in the Low Countries. Others looked to history to guide them, and still others grew adamant about Santa’s whiteness. And their righteous indignation is justified.

It’s clear Santa is white, at least in America. Look at the facts:

1. Uninvited, a man breaks into the house of a stranger.
2. No one shoots him.

Simple. These are tough times, and people may need help from strangers as often as from neighbors. But if it’s Christmas Eve, stay in bed. Don’t make a clatter on anyone’s lawn because the person tearing open the shutters or throwing up the sash will probably be armed. The light you see is not the moon on the breast of new-fallen snow but a gun-mounted flashlight. There’s no safety at the top of the porch or the top of the wall. And where we are in this country, it may be too late to dash away.

Author bio:

Matt Kolbet teaches and writes near Portland, Oregon.