Photo: Posten / YouTube
Goodbye, Mrs. Claus!
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Dec 23, 2021
As we get ready for our Holly Jolly Christmas, other countries around the world are getting in their Christmas spirit with holiday-themed music, decorations, celebrations, and even commercials.
In Norway, a 375-year-old postal service, Posten Norge, released their version of a festive Christmas commercial that features Santa Claus getting a boyfriend.
Norway is airing a commercial that stars a gay Santa Claus.
The country said goodbye to Mrs. Claus in this new commercial dubbed, “When Harry met Santa,” as a play on the popular 1989 movie titled “When Harry met Sally…”
The four-minute clip features a man, presumably named Harry, going downstairs in the middle of the night to get a glass of water when he catches a certain someone putting presents under his tree.
When they exchange stares, Santa bolts, leaving Harry alone with his newfound crush.
The following three-and-a-half minutes show Harry living his life with friends, family, and his religious background, as he gets visited by Santa several times but always gets sad when he leaves.
Finally, one year, he decides to send a letter to the North Pole with that famous Mariah Carey line, “All I want for Christmas is you,” and waits for Santa at the fireplace.
When someone delivers Harry’s Christmas presents to the door, you think all hope is lost, but then he walks back to the living room and sees Santa who says, “Well, I arranged some help this year so I can be with you,” before embracing lovingly.
Many people joked about the other implications that the commercial was sending instead of feeding into the hatred of those people who didn’t like the commercial.
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“Wait wait wait wait,” read one of the comments under the YouTube video that has received nearly 2 million views. “You mean Santa's not delivering presents this year so he can chill with this dude?”
Well-known Scandinavian actors Johan Ehn and Terje Stromdahl play the lead roles in the commercial and received overwhelmingly positive praise and international recognition.
Canadian Member of Parliament, Randall Garrison, tweeted that he would break his rule of not celebrating Christmas before December in order to praise the Norwegian Post.
“Ok I’m breaking my no Xmas before December rule to thank Posten Norge for this strong and moving message of inclusion celebrating 50 years since the decriminalization of homosexuality in Norway,” he said.
The ad was originally produced to celebrate the 50 years since the decriminalization of homosexuality.
Norway is known to have some of the most progressive LGBT+ legislation in all of Europe and always ranks very highly on the Gay Travel index — sitting at rank 18, while the USA falls at 31.
Civil partnerships have been legal since 1993 and LGBTQ people able to serve openly in the military since 1979.
While non-binary genders are not legally recognized — meaning that intersex babies are assigned a gender at birth — and MSMs (men who have sex with men) are banned from donating blood unless they counted 12 months from their last encounter, the country has seen a lot of progressive reform and is way farther ahead of some of its European neighbors.
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Follow him on Twitter here.