Look Upon These Daddies And Despair: Santas, Ranked By Hotness

Santa is hot. He always has been. Since the dawn of time, it’s been less Father Christmas, and more Daddy Christmas — he is, lest we forget, a broad, big-shouldered, fluffy-bearded man who exudes the uncomplicated desire to make you happy. We love a good Hot Santa.

The best Christmas carol is about him making out with your mum. The second best Christmas carol is about him watching you while you’re sleeping (as long as you’re into that, of course). He is a jubilant, swarthy mess of pleasure and literally everybody knows it.

But not all Hot Santas were created equal under God. To that end, we here at Junkee have done the hard work of developing the Hot Santa Index, (the HSI) which we have used to empirically rate five famous onscreen Santas from least to most attractive. So sit yourself down, neck a hot pint of egg nogg, and get ready for some real Christmas cheer.

The Hairy Baby Santa: Richard Attenborough in Miracle on 34th Street

I don’t know what to tell you about this Santa other than that he repulses me.

What the hell is going on here.

Somehow, despite boasting a full beard and the wizened skin of a date someone has left out in the sun for a thousand years, this Santa has never gone through puberty. He’s like something grown in a lab, designed to be as timid and amicable as possible. He is, in short, a giant, translucent, hairy baby of a Santa.

I’m well aware that this is by design. This Santa pretty much engages solely with children throughout the 114 minute running time of The Miracle on 34th Street: the film’s grown-ups treat him like the lumbering, Benjamin Button-ass social pariah that he clearly is.

Nonetheless, he still falls utterly short when measured against the rigid scientific metric of the HSI. The only way this Santa could be more sexless is if someone put a bowtie on him.

The Divorced Dad Santa: Tim Allen in The Santa Clause

Over the years, Tim Allen has specialised in bringing to the screen a bevy of men who most resemble a short wet fart. His Santa is no different.

No thank you ma’am.

You just know this Santa reeks of cheap liquor, pharmacy-bought cologne, and microwaved hot dogs. And if any Santa on this list is going to spend Christmas sobbing down the phone to his ex-wife, begging for one more night together (for the kid’s sake!), it’s this mangy, emphatically unappealing specimen.

The Divorced Dad Santa only just beats out The Hairy Baby Santa on the HSI, and simply by virtue of having some kind of sex drive, no matter how smeary and repulsive.

The Sociopathic Santa: Eric Freeman in Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2

If you wanna get down to the nitty gritty, Sociopathic Santa isn’t really a Santa: he’s a homicidal murderer who lumbers around town avenging his brothers’ death in a Santa suit. But, technicalities be damned, because it’s undeniable that he projects raw Hot Santa Energy.

Ignore the look of murderous rage on his face and you’ve got one hot Santa.

Indeed, he only ranks so low on this list because his energy is a little too raw. He’s a live-wire of a Santa, all nervous mood swings, strange vocal ticks, and gleaming axe swings.

He also doesn’t seem particularly interested in niceties (it’s his habit of beheading his sworn enemies with a large axe that gives him away on this front), so this is a Santa you couldn’t take out on a date, or bring over to meet the parents. He’s definitely a one-night stand Santa — not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just don’t ask him to take out the garbage.

The Eerily Horny Santa: Stan Francis in Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

Look, I was considering not putting this dude in, because I know it’s weird to crush on a pile of stop-motion animated wood, but I must go where the HSI tells me to go, and right now it’s pointing me firmly in the direction of the weirdly ripped, bald-headed Santa from the animated Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special.

Behind those black, pupil-less eyes writhes a torrent of heaving sexual desire.

I think the key to this Santa’s unbridled sexual potency is his pairing of suspenders and an overshirt, a goddamn Hot Santa Energy fashion move if ever there was one. He’s not going in for the flashy accoutrements favoured by your dimestore hot Santa. No sir. This dude keeps it minimal, and reaps the clear benefits in the process.

Also, this Santa was way ahead of the whole ‘bald head/stubbly facial hair’ look imitators like Oscar Isaac and Zayn have tried to nail since. So he’s not only a deeply, unnervingly attractive Santa, he’s also a style icon. Long may he run.

The Fuck Me Dead Santa: Kurt Russell in The Christmas Chronicles

Where do I start with this one. I’m ready and willing to settle down and start a family with this goddamn picture, let alone the real flesh-and-blood Santa that it depicts:

Goddamn.

Kurt Russell’s Fuck Me Dead Santa will pick you up on his motorbike, take you out to an expensive restaurant, and listen to every one of your jabbering stories about your bullshit day nobody in their right mind would ordinarily care about. Kurt Russell’s Fuck Me Dead Santa doesn’t care if you snore, or fart in bed, or leave your cutlery in the sink without washing up.

Kurt Russell’s Fuck Me Dead Santa is here for you.

May 2018 forever be remembered as the year that the Hot Santa trend peaked. Look upon our Hot Santa, ye mighty, and despair.