25 Percent of People Polled Want Santa Claus to Be a Woman or Gender Neutral

A recent survey conducted about everyone's favorite Christmas mascot, Santa Claus, revealed that a sizable demographic isn't so happy with the classic image the man in red is currently rocking. They want an update.

No, they don't want him to wear blue all of a sudden or switch from reindeer to elk-powered sleighs. They think Santa Claus should be a Santa Clausette, or a Cindy Claus. Or just gender neutral.

Graphic Springs said they surveyed 400 people in both the United States and the U.K. (granted, not a very large sample size), and then had 4,000 people vote on the suggested questions provided from the first group. 27 percent of them wanted Santa to be female or gender neutral.

Other questions in the survey asked whether people thought Kris Kringle could stand to upgrade a few other aspects of his whole schtick, AKA sneaking into people's homes to do charitable deeds. Some of the suggestions were kinda hilarious.

When asked if Santa should ditch the reindeer and get himself a flying car instead, 22 percent of respondents thought it'd be a good idea. 25 percent thought his big black boots could stand to be updated to sneakers. Don't know if that's such a good idea with all of the snow in the North Pole, though.

21 percent thought the dude could stand to lose a few pounds, and he'd probably have more time to hit the gym if he followed the advice of the 23 percent who think he should just use Amazon Prime instead. 20 percent wanted to see Santa rock some body ink while 18 percent thought he'd look good in skinny jeans and a new haircut.

Honestly, if all of these changes were implemented, we'd lose the jolly, portly, bearded, bespectacled dude who's been throwing mass-manufactured goods under our trees for centuries, in exchange for this guy:

Personally, I'd rather just go with the idea of a woman being Santa Claus and keeping the other ridiculous Santa Lore the way it is. But at the end of the day, it's all a bunch of made-up malarkey to shill presents, so what does it really matter who's on your sugar-water can this Christmas?

Because this is Christmas we're talking about, and millions of people can't wait to get offended by the slightest thing (including coffee cup designs), more than a few people were pissed off at the idea of Santa being a woman. Or, Rudolph forbid, gender neutral.

Some elected to display their ire by going the vulgarity route. Others, decided to employ sarcasm by coming up with feminine names of other popular fictional characters in order to highlight the perceived absurdity of the proposed changes to Santa.

While others were quick to remind everyone the "Christ" in "Christmas" stands for Jesus and Christianity. Which, I guess, means Santa Claus needs to be wearing red and white and flying on a magical sleigh?

He also needs to be a man to do it and give free gifts to children, because Santa Claus and Jesus were apparently tight like that and lived at the same time period. Or something. I mean I get why they're mad, but I think there are better arguments than #Jesusisthereasonfortheseasn. Just saying.

Perhaps my favorite "leave Santa alone!" argument comes from this Facebook user who attributes the "dismantling" of established social traditions to why children are so heavily medicated today, which struck me as a bit odd.

There were some people, however, who thought all of the hullaballoo over people's opinions on Mr. Claus would be the perfect time to slide in a joke. And they did. Granted, they were vulgar, but 'tis the season, I guess.

I love it when creepy uncles get Facebook accounts.

What do you think? Is Santa's proposed gender neutrality that big of a deal? Or do people need to chill out? (h/t wbir)