Santa’s belly laugh is ho-ho-wholesome
Big booming chortle is sure to put you in the Christmas mood
With Christmas fast approaching, there is a question a lot of Kiwis are asking. Why does Santa say “ho ho ho”? The obvious answer is that he’s a jolly fella, and that’s how the big man laughs, but it’s a more complex question than you might think. For one thing, no one else laughs anything like Santa. Other laughs are depicted as a “he he he”, or a “ha ha ha” or “lol”, it’s only Santa and people imitating Santa that do the “ho ho ho”?
This is probably for the best. Delivering three loud hos with a gap between each, as Santa does, is a risky way to laugh. If, outside of the festive season, you cracked a joke and your friend, partner or workmate responded with, “ho ho ho” things would get tense. You would assume they were being sarcastic or worse.
This negative way of interpreting “ho ho ho”, rings true historically. According to Mental Floss, “a double or triple ho was used to express derision or derisive laughter as far back as the 12th century, and was definitely in play by the 16th century”.
Interestingly, if you Google the “best short Christmas joke ever”, this unfunny stinker pops up: “How much did Santa pay for his sleigh? Nothing — it was on the house.”
Deliver that to anyone, anywhere, any time, and you would deserve to receive the derisive 16th-century version of “ho ho ho”.
This interpretation of “ho ho ho” is, of course, irrelevant when it comes to Santa. It’s never been his intention to spread derision. He isn’t judging kids with his laugh. He’s being jolly. He’s spreading joy. His intention is always to raise Christmas spirits. The truth is Santa finds riding a sleigh a real crack-up.
He genuinely yucks it up whenever a kid sits on his knee. In modern times that joy comes out in the form of three hos.
It wasn’t always that way. While Santa has been laughing for a long time he didn’t used to just say “ho ho ho”.
In the old days, he had a much longer and more varied laugh. In 1902 he was depicted as saying, “And a ha, ha, ha! And a ho, ho, ha, ha, hee!” in
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum.
Over time we have stripped it back to three distinct hos and no more.
Some believe the “ho ho ho” is an attempt to put to paper the subtleties of a large man’s laugh. Most of us laugh primarily from our throats, which can be written, “ha ha ha”.
Santa’s big booming laugh, on the other hand, is produced in his extremely large tum-tum. As Jennifer Parris put it on Romper, “Santa holds his belly with white-gloved hands and bounces up and down while he says, ‘ho ho ho’.”
Before audio recordings, movies, and TV shows, much of what we know about Santa came in written form. “Ho ho ho” was a good way to represent in letters the deep belly laugh of a fat man. They could have gone with “huh huh huh” or “uh uh uh” or “or or or” but “ho ho ho” was chosen.
When recorded actors started delivering the laugh out loud, they leant into the “ho” sound as it is written, often competing with the sounds of wild weather, noisy reindeer, sleigh bells and whip cracks.
The subtlety of a jolly large man chuckling away from deep within his abdomen was lost, and it became a loud, distinct “ho ho ho” from the throat. Now, in popular culture, Santa delivers this clean clear “ho ho ho” every time we see him.
I claimed before that Santa is the only being that “‘ho ho hos”. That isn’t strictly true.
Jabba the Hutt does it too. In
Return of The Jedi when Luke Skywalker appears in Jabba’s palace on Tatooine he tells him “You will bring Captain Solo and the Wookiee to me.” Jabba responds, “Ho ho ho. Ya koo tocha ka poonoo nee sok nyee.” (Your mind powers will not work on me, boy.) Like Santa, Jabba is no Kate Moss, his “ho ho ho”, is also likely the result of a huge belly.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. The only month we can use ho ho ho with impunity. So we might as well spend the next few weeks ho ho hoing whether it makes sense or not.
Ho ho ho, and Merry Christmas to everyone. See ya next year.