When I was a kid, my dad read to me the classic Christmas poem, "Twas the Night Before Christmas." In this poem, there is a line which describes Santa as a "right jolly old elf."
As I kid I really pondered a lot on this line. Santa is obviously in charge of the elves. The elves are short, but Santa is human sized. But according to the canonical poem, Santa also is an elf.
The way my child brain understood this was literally in analogy to the Great Goblin from the Hobbit.
The Great Goblin is the biggest goblin, and so is king of the goblins. Likewise, Santa is the biggest elf, and so is king of the elves.
It makes perfect sense, really. But also probably isn't how most people like to think of Santa.
But then again, how should we think of Santa? In fact, what even is Santa?
