I know it is logical and easy to assume everyone was dirty pre-washing/sewing machine, but I recall a fantastic book series I read as a youngster (and reread as adult) called "Clan of the Cave Bear". I now believe that every society had methods of living clean and in comfort despite travel.
I love that series, just finished the final book. Jean Auel studied stone age life to the extent that she spent an entire winter by herself in a cave in Alaska. Nonetheless, she didn't really go out of her way to convince us that their standards of cleanliness and housekeeping were anywhere close to ours.
Heck, right up to the end of the 19th century, most non-aristocratic people lived pretty close to what we would today call "squalor." Their sewers were open to the air, they had no supply of fresh water, their food was not wrapped, and in the big cities before the invention of the automobile, the streets were shin-deep in horse manure.
So washing was not as common as you'd think. They just got used to dirt.
The OP is about claiming Santa is a racist idea and he should be replaced with a giant penguin. In a few hundred years everyone on earth will look Hawaiian so it won't matter. Kids should be told Santa is Magic and can be whatever colour he wants to be.
For all intents and purposes, the modern Santa Claus was an invention of the Coca-Cola company. He was completely deconstructed and rebuilt for a Christmastime advertising campaign during the Great Depression.
He was fat, implying that prosperity was within reach. He rode in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, implying that fantasy could become reality if everyone would just
wish hard enough. He was bringing Christmas presents to every home, implying that the population had better go shopping--not altogether a bad tactic, since no one really understood depressions so perhaps it was possible to prime the pump by simply spending our way out of it.
Most importantly, he was always shown with a bottle of Coke in one hand. All of the above explanations notwithstanding, his primary job was to encourage Americans to buy ice-cold soft drinks
in wintertime!
We all love this modern Santa. It's been noted that the two most ubiquitous and most recognizable symbols of Christianity in America are Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
Works for me.
