I enjoy the fact that Christmas comes with a certain gaudiness that, for anyone with even the most vestigial sense of good taste, would be entirely unacceptable any other time of year. Red and green with lots of twinkling lights and don’t usually scream “classy”. Is it over the top? Of course. I think that’s the point.

While I think she was just going for a cool effect, I think there’s an unintended message about this in Brody Qat’s desaturated Santa costume. As she mentions on her site, you can’t even pull this off at Halloween because it only works against the backdrop of dozens of other Santas. The effect is so dramatic that she’s even been accused of Photoshop and After Effects trickery.

Brody’s been doing this for a few years now, but this year she decided to head off the questions and accusations of computer-enhancement, and write a guide on how you can be a desaturated Santa. With any luck, you’ll be the grayscale fat man at your Santa gathering this year.