As Christmas barrels toward us like an out-of-control, one-horse open sleigh, we here at BuzzFeed World came across this delightful photo of France's president, Emmanuel Macron, going around with Santa Claus meeting children.
"What a delightful picture!" we thought to ourselves. "Everyone loves Santa! And politicians know that everyone loves Santa. This is some prime Christmas content!"
And so we began our hunt. But as it turns out, finding pictures of presidents and prime ministers chilling with ol' St. Nick was harder than expected.
We turned up this picture of Brazil's president, Michel Temer, and first lady Marcela Temer from last year easily enough.
(Have you seen more skeptical children, by the way? That beard is fooling NOBODY.)
From there, though, it got pretty dicey. Here's Lebanon's prime minister, Saad Hariri, posing with the Chief Toy Giver back in 2010.
In 2008, President Vladimir Putin went to the home of Father Frost, Russia's equivalent of Santa.
We're pretty sure hackers haven't stolen Father Frost's naughty/nice list, but who can even say.
And finally, back in 2006 — more than a decade ago — German Chancellor Angela Merkel was spotted tolerating the presence of St. Nikolaus, the proto-Santa.*
*We know that there's a whole thing where the actual saint morphed into the Santa we know and demand homage from yearly, but tbh we're just wishing she'd been pictured with the Krampus.
But you know who freaking loves Santa? US presidents. Both Barack Obama and George W. Bush had a ton of photos with Big Red over the years.
Which makes sense, because the US literally invented the modern idea of Santa Claus. But, c'mon, Rest of the World. It's Christmas.