Beware, Italy. Santa the Invader Is Coming.

Photo

MILAN — Don Emilio is the parish priest at the cathedral of my hometown, Crema, 30 miles from Milan. He just hates Father Christmas (Babbo Natale if you’re Italian). The priest doesn’t simply ignore Father Christmas or disapprove of him: He hates him with a vengeance. A while ago he came over and rang my doorbell, and he was not a happy trouper: He’d noticed a brightly lit Santa Claus clinging to my balcony, clambering toward the window of the floor above.

My family thought it was cute, but Don Emilio didn’t. He thinks Babbo Natale is an interloper and says as much in church, thundering from the pulpit now that Christmas is nigh, accusing him of elbowing out the infant Jesus — not from a manger in a Nativity scene, but from the minds of Italian children. Who brings gifts? Good old Santa, not a newborn, no matter how sweet he is. And we know how pragmatic children are.

Let me say that Don Emilio has a point. We Italians tend to be xenophiles all year round, not just at Christmas. But during the festive season, our fascination with other cultures — above all with American culture — just rockets sky high.

You may well say, “But Santa Claus isn’t American!” Indeed. He’s inspired by St. Nicholas of Myra, in Anatolia, a fourth-century Christian bishop. The character then got a Dutch name, entered Germanic folklore, helped the cause of the Reformation in England (the infant Jesus was considered papist), became patron saint of Russia.

Later on, as we all know, he moved to Lapland, hired Scandinavian reindeers and bought a flying sledge. Not even Elon Musk owns such a cool vehicle. And Jeff Bezos, who’s testing drones to deliver packages right to his customers’ doorsteps, ought to pay royalties to Santa Claus. True, with Amazon, it’s one click; with Santa, you need snail mail (no credit card, though, since most 5-year-olds don’t carry one).

Santa is an international character, you may conclude. His big white beard and big red suit, however, were products of 20th-century American advertising, given a global lift by Coca-Cola. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But there’s no doubt that this elderly foreign gentleman, who stubbornly refuses to retire and seems immune to arthritis or rheumatism, has ousted the baby Jesus. In Italy, at least.

Let’s face it. Santa Claus is a quaint but powerful invader. You may think he has an exhausting seasonal job — Italians love an open-ended contract, which has no set date of expiration — but the man in red moves a lot of money. Italy is the third-largest Christmas spender in the European Union, after Spain and Britain. Italians are expected to spend 528 euros ($628) on average for Christmas, according to the farmers association Coldiretti. About a quarter of that sum will go for food (capitone in Rome, panettone in Milan, spumante wine everywhere). As much will be spent on travel and a tenth on movies and concerts.

But the largest slice — about 40 percent — will go for presents. And most of those will end up in Santa’s spacious sack. That makes Babbo Natale a sort of tycoon, and you never know with those people. They may decide to run for office. Come to think of it, if we shaved off Santa’s beard, dyed his hair and opened a Twitter account for him, we might pop him into the White House and no one would notice the difference. Well, maybe not: Santa is a smart businessman, a communications pro, and he knows his job.

He’s also a social and cultural climber. Not only did he get as far as my balcony, but he also scaled the heights of Italian preferences and changed our Christmas customs. Every year, more and more children write letters to Babbo Natale/Santa Claus. When I was a child, in the 1960s, I remember we wrote to Gesù Bambino/Infant Jesus, and we ignored those who pointed out that he was too young to read.

Almost all advertising and many shop windows today feature bright, red, bold Santas; Nativity scenes, with their soft pastel colors, have all but disappeared from the shopping streets. Where do the ox and the donkey hang out? In more traditional parts of Italy, like the Alps and the Apennines. And in Naples, where the Nativity scenes we call presepi have been a form of art since the 18th century and artisans every year come up with new figurines, taking inspiration from current affairs. (This year’s debutantes are Donald Trump and Obi-Wan Kenobi from “Star Wars.”)

Italians don’t have a board game to decide who rules Christmas. But the British do: “Players get into two teams — Team Santa and Team Jesus — and fight it out through a variety of festively themed puzzles, riddles, jigsaws, building challenges (not easy after a few Christmas sherries) and brain games to win believers,” proclaims the website for a game called Santa vs. Jesus. The Italian Catholic media, including the newspaper Avvenire, owned by the congregation of bishops, have made it clear that such a game is not a good idea.

Italy, as usual, is subtler, but no less ferocious. Santa is feared because he is an American icon and has powerful friends. Halloween witches and monsters have obliterated the traditional Giorno dei Defunti (All Souls, Nov. 2) and are bothering St. Lucia, a third-century martyr from Sicily who travels with her little donkey on Dec. 13 to take presents to children who, in northeastern Italy, leave a hay bouquet outside their windows. Santa is also undermining Italy’s Epiphany (Jan. 6) broomstick lady, the Befana, who is about his age, but not as charming.

But none of those other peaceful American invaders — who also benefit from powerful allies like Facebook (narrative), Instagram (images) and Amazon (delivery) — is as loved and feared as Santa Claus. True, his immense power over media and sales has put the infant Jesus back into his role as the ultimate spiritual model. But the risk of being conquered by the big man in red, for Italy, is still great.

There is only one defense left: words. The most famous festive proverb is “Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi” — “Christmas with your own; Easter with whom you please.” And the infant Jesus is definitely one of us. Nativity images have been found in fourth-century catacombs in Rome. So, let’s stick to him this Christmas. If Santa wants to come back next spring, he’s welcome. He ought to wear a lighter coat, though. April in Italy is balmy.