Claus crucified

A few years ago a Japanese department store, trying to appear modern and Westernised, mounted an extravagant Christmas display featuring a life-sized crucified Father Christmas. There is also an anecdote told by an American Motorola executive in 1945, the first year of the American occupation of Japan. Shopkeepers in Tokyo's Ginza district knew there was a big Western religious festival approaching. They knew it involved a man with a white beard in a red suit. The result was little Santa Clauses in crucifixes.