Christmas in April

Ho! Ho! Ho!
 
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

 ‘Twas the day before the opening of Santa Claus season, and on the way to his first holiday gig, Santa’s helper Walter Roach made a very important stop – to say good-bye to his reindeer—No!—to  see his hair colorist. After all, if Santa’s beard isn’t as white was the snow, then he can’t be the real Santa. And Roach is about as real as a Santa Claus can be.
 No, he isn’t the jolly fellow who lives at the North Pole. He’s a sixth grade teacher at Norwood Creek Elementary School, where the little kids reverentially believe that he’s the real deal.
 
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.
And Mama in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.
   For Roach, 63, the Santa persona isn’t just something he puts on seasonally for parties and festive yuletide functions.  No, his red suit, beard, morbid obesity, and jingle bells ae for real. Since entering the Santa Claus business eight years ago, Roach has embraced the look and character of the Claus year round. Scorning the role of a nifty elf, Roach morphed into the Big Guy himself.

 It wasn’t that difficult. At 6-foot-3 and 287 pounds, with his ample teacher voice, snow white hair, he doesn’t exactly blend into the crowd. Add the twinkly grin and striking white beard, and it’s no wonder wide-eyed post-modern munckins stare at him wherever he goes.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
and he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes–how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
and the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
that shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
 And he goes a lot of places. Roach is quite the entrepreneur. This year Roach has 64 gigs lined up between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, ranging from corporate galas and parades to school visits and small private parties. He also books jobs  from $125 for a 20-minute “fly-by” to $225 an hour if he brings along an elf and Mrs. Claus. Mrs. Claus isn’t Mrs. Roach.  There is no way Mrs. Roach is going to look like Mrs. Claus.
 But she willing to enjoy the fame. And money. This summer Santa Claus is taking his comparitively, petite, svelte wife, Debbie, the real Mrs. Claus, sort of,  to Tuscany on his Santa earnings.
 Ho! Ho! Ho! Way to go, Santa!
 Oh I like this.  Very American wouldn’t you say? Business and idealism, mixed together. As American as apple pie.
 Ho! Ho! Ho!  Like oil and water, brother.
 But who cares?  It is the delusion that counts, the delusion.  Like free health insurance. And spending our way out of a recession. Ooops!
 Let’s not let reality get in the way of our delusion.  After all, it is easier to print more money than spend less. On the way to reality we can always go to the hair stylist an get our beards colored white—again!
 Ho! Ho! Ho!
 Ho! Ho! Ho! Scientists know that absolute objectivity has yet to be attained.   So why not believe in Santa Claus?
 Because Sants is not real. He is not poetic either.
 Theologian Walter Bruggemann, in The Poetic Imagination writes, “to address the issue of a truth greatly reduced requires us to be poets that speak against a prose world. . .  By prose I refer to a world that is organized in settled formulae… By poetry I mean language that moves, that jumps at the right moment, that breaks open old worlds with surprise, abrasion and pace. Poetic speech is the only proclamation worth doing in a situation of reductionism.”  I am all for poetry. But I am not for Santa.
 Santa is anything but objective. Nothing is objective or impartial about the Big Guy.
 Are people better at making observations, discoveries, and decisions if they remain neutral and impartial?  No.  As Alice in the rabbit hole looked for truth learns, as the poet eloquently probes into the cosmos understands, truth is not dependent upon objectivity.
 The problem with Santa, really, is that he requires no imagination at all.  Nothing really is poetical about him. Jolly and fat and delusional as all git out, Santa is the perfect mascot for post-modern America.
 Knowledge will be pursued and it will be found, but only by those who love and who find truth.  Objectivity, as Alice found in her crisis, as the poet understands in his craft, is impossible.  And undesirable.  Are people better at making observations, discoveries, and decisions if they remain neutral and impartial?  Absolutely not.  And, by the way, Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life!
 Santa is the way of delusion, narcissism, and subjectivity.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
and filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

 Whatever.

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