Because what we need at Christmas is more fat-shaming!
This is a b-side from a 1953 holiday single by Teresa Brewer, who was at her commercial peak around this time. Brewer was a really big name then; among other things, she was one of a number of white singers who had a series of hits singing milder versions of songs by Black artists. Later she released a series of albums interpreting the works of jazz greats, and, like many other singers of that era, she did quite a few novelty numbers. The premise of this one is that a kid goes to see a mall Santa and realizes that their chimney was just too small for jolly old Saint Nick, so they ask the parents to stay up and open the door for the guy when he drops by with presents. I sort of get what they were trying to do – growing up I wondered how Santa got into my house when we didn’t have a fireplace – but the lyrics really lean into the idea that this is Santa’s fault for piling on the calories, and so it hasn’t aged too well.
Also: Santa can somehow bend the laws of time and space to drop by every house with a child in it in one night, but somehow he can’t figure out how to navigate a narrow chimney? Give the guy a little credit!
