Merry X-Mess

Okay, everyone has Christmas memories. Most of us relate holidays past with toys we received or food we used to eat. In that regard, for me it's the talking GI Joe ("Enemy planes---hit the dirt!") and sugar cookies topped with Duncan Hines frosting sprinkled with what looked like green and red shards of glass. But as we get older, Christmas memories don't seem to stick like they used to. So as we get a couple of weeks out from St. Nick's ninja-like break-in, I'd like to relate one of this season's observations so far before it fades....

Every block has its Griswold house. Mine is two houses down. In the last few years, the family of inflatable holiday characters has grown into a virtual Island Of Misfit Toys. When a Santa-hat-wearing SpongeBob SquarePants appeared on their roof line, I almost crashed into my neighbor's Suburban. The phenomenon of these fan powered mini Macy's New Year's Day balloons will prove to be a fad, I'm sure. I actually enjoy them at night, but when they're unplugged and deflated during the day they look like holiday-themed spent condoms strewn about someone's yard by the likes of Godzilla or King Kong.

Just the other day, my wife and I went for a walk and passed a house with what looked like a vinyl crime scene. I stopped in the middle of the street to take in the carnage. It was as if I were the first person to come upon a Christmas character drug deal gone wrong shootout at the North Pole. Frosty The Snowman was folded flat over the porch rail, but twisted at the waist (or snowball section, as it were) so that his coal smile now looked like an agonized death wince. An elf was looking at me holding a hammer, still smiling but trapped inside a collapsed snowglobe as if he were choked out gangster-style via the ol' plastic bag suffocation method. On the other side of the driveway in the side yard, another snowman---surely one of Frosty's underlings---lay across the hood and wheel well of a Mazda. One of those lighted wire reindeer was knocked over as the other two grazed; probably still in shock, I thought. Then I saw Santa.

Santa lay face down on the frosted lawn, his mitten covered hands palms up at the end of arms that spread away from the torso like wings of a paper airplane and his legs were bent painfully forward at the shins. His deflated head looked like something out of the black and white photos I remember seeing in the Time-Life books depicting dead outlaws of the Old West. I imagine he never saw it coming, that cold blooded shot to the back of the head. Whatever this was, be it a drive-by or calculated attack, the success could not be disputed.

I described to my wife what we may have witnessed and she laughed a little as she looked around the yard. "You're right honey", she said, "it does look like a something a sick, perverted idiot would imagine".

We both laughed and I feigned concern that we should alert the authorities. She looked at me with a furrowed brow, but then put me at ease. "Well, when they all get plugged in tonight, they'll be alright".

I love it. I imagine a Reservoir Dogs scenario for these inflatable characters and she tries to assure me that they'll all be okay come nightfall when the homeowner plugs them back in.

Kind of like putting the top hat back on Frosty's head.

Happy Birthday indeed.

Merry Christmas everyone.