Santa Claus

Here it is Christmas Eve and I'm sitting before the fire with a glass of wine as I watch a local news broadcast track Santa Claus and his sleigh on the weather radar. All right, so it's not a fire; it's a noisy, old floor furnace that rattles and bangs as it heats up, and I'm on my third glass of wine. The only reason I'm even watching the newscast is because the well-scrubbed, little honey on the tube* likes to wear tight sweaters and, man, does she have some nice boobs. I only wish I could get close enough to sniff them.

At my age though, libido doesn't take you far and I actually started watching them track old St. Nick as I pondered the question, what the hell is with this Santa Claus stuff? I have no quibble with the season. It's kind of nice to have a holiday in which gifts are exchanged to demonstrate love and affection. There's much to be said for that, but why the Santa Claus crap? I see nothing charming or desirable about selling the kids on the fiction that there's a jolly, old, fat man in a red suit who runs around on Christmas Eve bringing them gifts. What purpose does it serve except to prep them for belief in a benevolent, paternal deity?

People are damned serious about their Santa Claus too. If you don't believe me, find some relatives who have small kids. Gather the little ones around you and announce that there is no Santa Claus. You'll end up eating Christmas dinner with the likes of the Cratchits in the days before Scrooge turned. The grown-ups just can't seem to wrap their head around the idea that it might be better to tell the little ones that we're exchanging gifts as a gesture showing just how much we care for one another. I guess it's just too mundane for them.

If you've got to have a Santa though, I like the one that I've seen in a commercial this season. He's svelte and debonair. He wears a well-tailored suit and his white hair is coiffed. He's got a cellphone, and he tells people to call him "Claus", pronounced "klouz". Now there's a Santa for the arrogant CEO's and the Wall Street swindlers. See you in Davos, baby!

* In the era of flat-screen TV's, is it still appropriate to call them "tubes", since they're no such component anymore. Wouldn't something like "panels" be more apropo?