This Christmas Eve, I was returning from the supermarket, laden down with last-minute fixings – whole cranberry sauce, sliced smoked turkey, peas, stuffing, gravy mix, canned pumpkin, eggnog – when suddenly I stop dead in my tracks. Can it be? A block from my house, across the street on the sidewalk in front of the U-DO-IT Laundromat, there's an actual live-and-in person Santa Claus, prancing around and bearing gifts and trying to bestow them upon stunned little kids passing by.
I say "a" Santa Claus, rather than THE Santa Claus, because this Santa, Lord love him, is carrying a red, toy-crammed, drawstring sack emblazoned with letters spelling out "U-DO-IT," and happens, as they say, to be black.
Black Santa/White Christmas? But no, it wasn't snowing.
Not only wasn't this Santa ho-ho-ho-ing, he was saying "Merry Christmas" rather than any of the more sickeningly lame politically correct replacement seasonal slogans such as "Happy Holidays" or "Cheery Chanumas," or "Merry Chris-Chan-Kwan-Mas-Zaa-Ukah." Which was a great relief, I must admit.
I prefer my Santas silent, except for their obligatory query, "What do you want for Christmas, Little Girl?" Is there an age/size cut-off point for wanting to sit in Santa's lap and recite your Christmas List alphabetically?
That's what I asked my fondest friend, "Freddy from Fresno," not his real name, as we watched the kiddies and their moms queuing up for an audience with Santa at a country-style smorgasbord Sunday Brunch in the sticks recently.
What a charming scene. "Freddy" actually had to hold me back from leaping onto Santa's lap or bursting out in spontaneous, oh-so-embarrassing choruses of those wonderfully impertinent lyrics to that old Eartha Kitt song covered by Madonna, "Santa Baby":
Santa baby ... I really do believe in you./Let's see if you believe in me .../ Hurry down the chimney tonight ...
Instead, "Freddy" valiantly diverted me with scrumptious spoonfuls of papillote en croute from our brunch. Wait – I'm kidding about the menu – it didn't get that fancy. But still, "Freddy" was definitely performing an Authentic Intervention on me.
I was, I admit, mesmerized by the tableau. Doting Mommies – where were the Daddies? – taking Polaroids of their kids sitting on Santa's lap. Little kids anticipating, if not an actual Santa visit down the chimney, then certainly a pile of break-the-bank presents beneath their family's flame-retardant Christmas tree.
In Philadelphia, where, alas, I still live, they sure know how to treat a Santa. The front page of the daily newspaper Metro featured a huge color photo headlined "Pampered Santa," showing Santa Claus being given, according to the caption, "a relaxing hot stone therapy massage. St. Nick's treatment also included a beard trim and a facial using ingredients such as crushed pine cone, ground mistletoe, and a sprinkling of peppermint" at a local salon-spa.
Groovy.
Not everyone is so nice to Santa. In fact, mostly it hasn't been such a good year for Santas everywhere. You've seen scads of awful headlines, like outtakes from that offensive-to-nearly-everyone movie "Bad Santa": Santas cursing at kids, exposing themselves to mothers, getting drunk in droves to protest lack of proper holiday spirit.
Yikes!
Consider John Chuckman's brilliant piece of "Online Journal" commentary, "And to All, a Good Night: A Contemporary Christmas Tale":
It was only a matter of time before Santa Claus himself came under the Neanderthal-eyed scrutiny of American intelligence. After all, Santa's citizenship is unknown, and he crosses borders with no passport or other form of identification. No one knows whether he even has a valid pilot's license ... His intentions with this activity are not understood beyond some fuzzy generalization about kindness and generosity to all.
Clearly, here was the world's largest unplugged pipeline to potential terrorists ... Within in a few hours, the beating sound of a black helicopter approached Santa ... [A]rmed men emerged from the helicopter, shot Prancer and shackled Santa, shoving him into the dark, beating machine. The elf heard a word that sounded like "Guantanamo" and Santa has not been heard from since. Reports of his fate reached the International Red Cross and organizations like Amnesty International, leading to inquiries, but these have been met only with silence from American authorities.
Only a matter of time, eh?