Santa is sitting in our living room, dispensing gifts to neighbourhood children, and saying to a young boy, 鈥淪o what do you want for Christmas, man?鈥�
Man? This is Groovy Santa, who if you look beneath the expensive red Santa suit, shiny black boots, white hair and beard, bears a striking resemblance to my eldest son, Tim.
Tim is a big lad, but a large pillow is still necessary for the required girth.
Groovy Santa is also Virgin Santa. This is a maiden performance. And an impressive one.
Not that Tim hasn鈥檛 been pressed into service at Christmas before. He played a shepherd in the kindergarten nativity scene, wearing a tea-towel over his head, if memory serves.
He played trumpet in the middle-school band Christmas concert, and we puffed with pride until we discovered he wasn鈥檛 actually blowing into the instrument, but miming. 鈥淚 was afraid I鈥檇 mess up Good King Wenceslas,鈥� he confessed. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really difficult.鈥�
Every year, poor Tim has to do a Dickensian Tiny Tim and say, 鈥淕od bless us everyone,鈥� before Christmas dinner because it鈥檚 a tradition. He said it when he was really tiny and now Christmas isn鈥檛 Christmas without it. It鈥檚 kind of kitsch now and he probably wishes we鈥檇 christened him Elvis or Garth, but he always delivers. And now we have him bellowing out a ho-ho-ho instead. The things parents ask.
The snow is falling softly outside the window, right on Christmas cue. My wife wanted to host a Breakfast with Santa, so here we are with the neighbours in our townhouse complex, and the kids are decorating home-made gingerbread men, playing party games and receiving a visit from Santa himself.
Tom, who鈥檚 six, has told his parents that it won鈥檛 be the real Santa. Not here, not in our living room. But after he climbs down from Santa鈥檚 lap, he stops briefly, returns and gives Santa a huge hug. Then returns to his parents and says, 鈥淗e鈥檚 the real Santa. I can tell.鈥�
Santa 鈥� the real Santa 鈥� has become the most politically incorrect character there is. An incongruous role model.
He鈥檚 way overweight, he smokes a corn-cob pipe, he produces his toys in a remote offshore location using cheap, vertically challenged labour, he sneaks into people鈥檚 houses in the middle of the night, little children happily sit on his knee even though they鈥檝e been warned to beware of strangers, he drinks far too much Coca-Cola and he is in serious need of a haircut and shave.
What鈥檚 he doing living in the North Pole anyway? Doesn鈥檛 Mrs. Claus get bored up there? And cold? Isn鈥檛 it a tad too harsh and isolated? Shouldn鈥檛 Santa, who seems to be about 80 years old, be retired in Scottsdale or Florida? Do they play pinochle with the elves? Shuffleboard with the reindeer?
He may be giving up some of his vices. Almost 200 years after Clement Moore gave us The Night Before Christmas, self-published Vancouver author Pamela McColl has excised the part where he has the stump of a pipe in his mouth and smoke encircles his head.
McColl says she wanted to update the book for the 21st century and remove the naughty part. I鈥檇 have kept the pipe and replaced the tobacco with medicinal marijuana.
Our modern-day Santa may be obese and merry and jolly 鈥� his cheeks like roses, his lips like a cherry 鈥� but as the writer David Sedaris observes, the European Saint Nicholas 鈥渋s painfully thin and dresses not unlike the pope, topping his robes with a tall hat resembling an embroidered tea cozy.鈥�
Santa has gone through updates and refinements over the centuries, and Coca-Cola in the 1930s gave us the version we have today.
But let鈥檚 not try to change the old fellow too much, even as we all change and become more cynical and knowing.
He is a wonderful constant. Kind, magical, benevolent and a testament to innocence.
Children around the world love him. And trust him. And much too soon they discover that it鈥檚 not all magic and wonder out there.
The longer we can keep that innocence the better. Santa may not be perfect, may be increasingly politically incorrect (he even wears fur) 鈥� but let鈥檚 not rush to fix his bad habits.
Merry Christmas, man. And to all a good night.
