Christmas Cheer

From a child’s point of view, Christmas is a wonderful time. Bags of candy drip and bulge from each store counter and every grandmother’s bottomless purse. But for the rest of us mortals, ‘tis definitely the season to be wary. It’s enough to drive dentists to extraction and mothers to the nearest milk of magnesia bottle.

The worst offender is the Santa Claus stationed at every shopping centre this time of year. I don’t mind his asking the children’s names and what they want for Christmas. What I object to are the candy canes he hands out to everyone.

The trouble with peppermint candy canes is that they’re often dropped, easily broken and take at least a week to eat. I always try to peel the cellophane down so the child can hold the candy by the wrapper. For your information, peppermint candy canes will stick to mittens, scarves and the fur coat of the lady in line at the cash ahead of you, but they won’t stick to the cellophane they’re wrapped in.

Then there’s the problem of Christmas correspondence. I once intercepted a letter from my daughter, then an over-programmed seven-year-old, which I had to do periodically because there’s a law against sending certain kinds of information through the mails.

The letter was addressed to my mother, for the simple reason that Grandma is the only relative foolhardy enough to respond to her letters. (Her first choice for a pen-pal was the Queen, but apparently Her Majesty was otherwise engaged.) The letter read as follows:

“Dear Granma,
“What did the bald man say when he got a comb for a present? Ansser: I’ll never part with this! Are you or are you not exited about Crismas? I have faith in Crismas. Magoo didn’t. He didn’t give candy to the poor children. The mean old rech!”

Actually, the letter showed a complete grasp of the holiday spirit and was a vast improvement over the one she wrote the year before, which I quote in its entirety:

“Dear granma what happened to the girl who ate bullets? Anser: her hair grew out in bangs. I wish you a very happy new yere. I wanted to wish you a merry crismas too, but my sister told me you were jewish.”

Christmas Catalogue

Neiman-Marcus’ annual Christmas catalogue has just appeared, and as usual its gift suggestions leave me cold. This could be because I don’t know many men rich enough or fond enough of me to order anything from it, and even if I did, none of the gifts seems to have been created with me in mind.

For instance, the first suggestion is a $35,000 one-day cruise on which a couple may take 598 of their friends. This gift is definitely not for me. I can’t find a sitter so I can get out to the hairdresser for an hour, let alone off on a cruise for the whole day. And I haven’t got 598 close friends, although come to think of it, once everyone in town found out about the cruise, I'm sure that would no longer be a problem.

The second gift idea is a $5,000 bath tub with a built-in aquarium. The catalogue says that the price includes the fish, but not the shipping or installation charges. Now what’s the use of a gift like that? Suppose some nut scraped together the $5,000 to buy it for me, assuming I didn’t mind bathing under the baleful eye of a bowlful of fish. The real problem lies in the cost of the installation. I don’t know what your plumber charges, but if I ever called mine in to install this horror, he’d be able to buy the Hawaiian Islands instead of just holidaying there twice a year.

Neiman-Marcus says it made a conscious effort not to advertise anything too ostentatious this year. They were afraid it would be in bad taste during the present recession. Therefore, they offer something for those pessimists who expect another flood—a Noah’s Ark listed at $588,247. This is a refined and updated version of the Biblical Ark, with room to sleep eight passengers, carry a crew of four and accommodate 92 mammals, 10 reptiles, 26 birds, 14 freshwater fish, 38 insects and a veterinarian. The ark will also carry a French chef, Swedish masseur, German hair stylist, Italian couturier, Park Avenue physician and English librarian.

What it won’t carry is Canadian me. If I ever want to get that intimate with so much human and animal life, I’ll save the half-million and spend an hour at the Atwater Metro station during the 5 o’clock rush hour.