The holidays are the season of peace, love, light and all that stuff. So it’s unfortunate that an abyss of disagreement has opened over holiday decorations at our house. Or should I say one decoration in particular. Before describing it and in order to immunize myself against marital strife I’d like to note that in most matters related to holiday decor my wife and I are on the same page.
Yet, as I write this a couple of other sources of potential friction have arisen; separate and distinct from the above referenced one. For example, a photo of Santa and me. I’m not speaking of the adorable image of me sitting on Santa’s lap, circa age four, undoubtedly shot at some midtown Manhattan department store. But come to think of it I’d like to know where that’s disappeared to, as well? If ever a photograph deserved pride of place, at least for the month of December, among the dozens of framed family photos gracing the surface of our baby grand piano that’s the one.
No, the photo I’m thinking of was taken of Santa and me, both of us in late middle age. I can’t remember the details of the event. Other than that Santa had flown down from the North Pole on his sled and I was there under the guise of a journalist to interview him. The profession’s admittedly beleaguered ethics require us not to seek or accept gifts but I took advantage of the press availability to ask the jolly old elf whether we might have our photograph taken together. At 6’2” I didn’t ask to sit on his lap. That would have been awkward. We’re positioned side by side. So, I don’t know what happened to that image either.
Then there’s the fancy Boston Terrier Christmas tree. Since I’ve previously written about it, probably around this time last year, I won’t bore you — feel free to look it up on the WAMC website if you have absolutely nothing better to do — but it’s a glorious work of art, sick with canines scampering to and fro along the holiday-lighted boughs. When my spouse challenges my taste, whatever the bone of contention is, has a mysterious way of vanishing into the murk of our basement where it’s left for me to find it. My partner made less of a stink than she normally does when I resurrected it this year, perhaps because we now have grandchildren, I put it in their room, and there’s nothing that shouts holiday magic like a pyramid of playful pooches from the Danbury Mint.
The real challenge to matrimonial and not just matrimonial but, on this issue, family harmony, because disturbing group think has set in, is my desire to show a little love to a true survivor — a plastic or maybe it’s a rubber Santa that arrived to celebrate Christmas 1953, my first on Earth. I have documentary proof because I’ve systematically been transferring our old color 16mm home movies onto USB flash drives.
There Santa is, standing under the Eisenhower era tree, clutching a candy cane. Time takes its toll on all of us, even Santa. Especially Santa if he’s made of cheap plastic. Nonetheless, my mother, spitting in the face of mortality as she often did, continued to display St. Nick every Christmas until she passed from this veil of tinsel and tears in 2019. Since then, I’ve considered it something of a moral obligation to keep the tradition going.
That’s no easy feat since Santa has lost both feet and his other appendages aren’t looking too healthy either. My daughter Lucy indulged me in something of a colloquy on the subject Wednesday morning. “I thought we threw it out last year,” she stated blandly when I raised my intention of including him in this year’s festivities, perhaps even helping him sip his egg nog through a straw.
“Does it actually hold much sentimental value for you other than that it’s old,” she pressed on in the non-confrontational, I’m only asking, way that psychoanalysts have. “It’s one thing if it was your childhood best friend toy.”
I was forced to admit it wasn’t. My younger brother Johnny has Lassie, a well-loved baby blue stuffed dog that he lost at the Amsterdam Hilton. For a while my brother Peter, two years younger than Johnny, went nowhere without his tattered yellow security blanket.
“What is it?” my daughter continued, in a tone she apparently thought consoling. “A snarled discolored lump of plastic.” Was that a question or an observation? “It’s okay to leave it in the past,” she said.
I’m forced to admit she may have been correct. Or should I say that Santa, or the laws of entropy, but certainly some higher power, made the decision for me. Because as I was gingerly handling Santa for the photo shoot that accompanies this commentary his face fell off. Not all of it, mind you, just from the mouth down. Still, his present condition doesn’t shout holiday cheer.
So I lovingly returned him to the plastic bag where Father Christmas spends the other eleven months of the year while I decided whether and if so how to dispose of his remains. But guess what? He’s gone missing again. He was quietly sitting on a chair in the living room minding his own business and now he’s vanished. I think I know who’s behind the kidnapping but in the holiday spirt I’m not pointing fingers. Nonetheless, I fear greatly for Santa’s safety.
Ralph Gardner Junior is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found in the Berkshire Eagle and on Substack.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
