female santa prue macsween
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We can’t seem to get through the holiday season without some prominent conservative declaring the PC-brigade is waging a war on Christmas, and this year is no exception.

Taking up the fight this time is commentator Prue MacSween — yes, the woman who told Sunrise‘s infamous Indigenous affairs panel last year that “just like the first Stolen Generation where a lot of children that were taken because it was for their own wellbeing, we need to do it again, perhaps”. 

MacSween logged on to Twitter yesterday to complain that a four-year-old boy was upset at Myer Bondi Junction after seeing a woman dressed as Santa Claus. “Why are we traumatising little kids with this gender nonsense,” MacSween asked, before going on to liken the practice to “child abuse”.

It’s a lot to unpack. But even putting aside the claim that a woman dressing up as a fictional man amounts to an attack on Christmas, gender, and the family unit, something about MacSween’s allegations just doesn’t stack up. 

As Guardian Australia journalist Naaman Zhou noted on Twitter, according to Myer’s website, there is no Santa Claus at its Bondi Junction store.

Which means one of two things. Either the child — well-versed in “stranger-danger” — was simply calling out a store-Santa imposter, or the lady Saint Nick was a figment of a MacSween fever-dream.