A cheery Christmas from Santa Claus! Still serving as Santa after what’s been a rather feisty year for the world at large, during which red has indeed been a prominent colour, the former Joseph Ratzinger, long-time Catholic cardinal, took over the post last year upon learning that his career as Pope Benedict XVI was going nowhere fast.

The German had been elected the 265th pope on April 19, 2005 (on the fourth ballot even though he was the front-runner in the bookies’ books), taking his name from Benedict XV, who’d had a hell of a time talking about peace during World War I and defending dogma when everyone was noticing that, since the Church was a man-made institution, it’s going to, you know, change once in a while.

Benedict XV said screw you and made Joan of Arc a saint, even though she was, you know, heavily into war, and he anticipated the Bush administration’s Iraq policy by saying Third World natives were going to have to learn how to be priests themselves because European missionaries couldn’t, you know, keep doing the job themselves forever.

Benedict XVI said, well, I also got the name from Saint Benedict of Nursia (480-543), who became a hermit-monk and founded the Benedictines, even though he could have been a Roman nobleman. So there.

But, Holy Father! That Benedict was talked out of his hermitage to become the abbot of a monastery, and then the monks tried to poison him, so he scuttled back to his cave!

Yes, well, of course I knew that, said Benedict XVI, but I’m going to be a kinder, gentler pope, who listens to both sides of an argument and calmy suggests solutions … although I do have a few things to tell those Muslim radicals.

The new pope had The Official Illustrator of the Faith whip him up a new papal coat of arms. No papal tiara, see? Gone! Just the big hat! Keys to the kingdom, yeah, that’s it. Maybe over here a big old German bear with his tongue sticking out. Lovely.

Now an African Queen, for his favourite movie. You couldn’t exactly paint a picture of Humphrey Bogart in there, much as he’d love to. And down at the bottom, let’s see, what’s his favourite food … scallops!

Perfect.

Benedict. Hmmmmm. Wasn’t the Order of Saint Benedict, which Saint Benedict founded (hence the name), known as the Olivetans? And didn’t Santa Ratzinger, when he was pope, like to wave around olive branches? And didn’t Saint Malachy, the 12th-century gossip columnist, predict that there would be another 112 popes, and that No 111 would be the “Glory of the Olive”?

And didn’t John Paul II, No 110, fit Malachy’s description of de labore solis – or “of the labor of the sun”, since there was a solar eclipse the day he was born and the day he was buried? Plus, he was always getting sunburnt on his overseas shopping trips, bargaining for souls.

So that would mean that when they find a replacement for Benedict, now that he’s become Santa, it will be the last pope on Malachy’s list, Peter the Roman? And doesn’t that mean the end of the world?

Nah, couldn’t be.