Ho~Ho~Ho! Merry Christmas!

I love Santas.

Small ones, tall ones, fat ones, thin ones, red ones, green ones, and everything-in-between ones:

* I have a cat, a dog, a gator, a bear, and a mouse, all dressed as Santas.

* My Scottish Santa boasts a kilt.

* Several hand-carved Santas have pipes.

All have a twinkle in their eye.

As my collection of Santas grew, my desire to have an enormous Christmas tree sitting in the middle of the living room, taking up valuable real estate, diminished.

So BFF and I gave the behemoth to Goodwill, along with several strands of tangled lights, numerous boxes of toxic tinsel (that kept ending up in our cats’ digestive tracts and litter boxes), and ornaments which did not add to our enjoyment of the holiday season.

We kept a small, three-foot tall table top tree which we decorated with our favorite ornaments ~ Santas, angels, zebras, musical instruments, and hand-made ornaments from our nieces and nephews.

A few weeks after donating the large tree, we hosted a Holiday Open House for friends and family.   As soon as CTE (Christmas Tree Enthusiast) arrived, he looked around the living room, scanning with radar-like precision.  He swept back and forth a few times, with a perplexed look on his face.

He swept past dozens of Santas displayed on every surface, and in every nook and cranny.

He ignored the three-foot tall table top tree   next to where he was standing, and appeared not to see two smaller Christmas trees ~ one on the dining room table, and the other, complete with twinkling lights, on the hutch.

As he scanned the room, his eyes could have slowed or stopped periodically to admire nutcrackers, stockings (hung by the chimney with care), wreaths, holiday candles (glowing with warmth), reindeer, and other prominently displayed reminders of the season at hand.

Sadly, he missed all of the above.

With a look of utter amazement and complete disbelief, he asked, in an almost angry tone of voice, “Where is your Christmas Tree?”

“Right there,” I returned, pointing to our petite masterpiece.

“No.  Where is your B-I-G Christmas Tree?”

“That is our B-I-G Christmas Tree.  The two S-M-A-L-L trees are over there, and over there,” I added, helpfully pointing them out.

“Why don’t you have a B-I-G Christmas Tree?”

“We gave it away because we didn’t really enjoy having it that much.”

“What do you mean?  You HAVE to have a tree,” he said, with such obvious authority that I wondered whether we had overlooked that clause in a social contract we had signed inadvertently at some point  during our married life.

“We don’t HAVE to have a tree,” I said with a smile, starting to enjoy this unexpected cross-examination.

“Of course, you do.   Where are you going to put your presents?”

“Right over there, next to my three foot tall Santa.”

“You can’t put your presents next to a Santa Claus,” he said as if he were speaking to someone who was mentally challenged.  “Presents belong under a Christmas Tree.”

“Well, I don’t know if that’s an actual rule . . . ”

Even after I reminded him that we didn’t have any children who would be devastated by the lack of a tree on Christmas morning, its absence continued to bother him.

Shaking his head in dismay, he wandered over to the bounteous buffet where he  filled his plate with shrimp cocktail, without commenting on the size of the shrimp.

Later, I watched him enjoying the cocktail-sized sweet and sour meatballs and petite pigs-in-blankets.  He did not ask, even once, “Where are your B-I-G wieners?  Where are your B-I-G balls?”

Despite the food, drink, and convivial conversation, CTE remained stiff and ill-at-ease for the remainder of the party.  Apparently, our lack of conformity  to tradition, and our obvious disregard for Christmas decorating etiquette, made it impossible for him to enjoy the holiday gathering.

Instead of accepting the “what is,” as Zen enthusiasts encourage us to do, he kept looking around for the one thing that was missing.

Now, you must understand that our Christmas tree never rivaled the tree displayed outside Rockefeller Center.  Nor was coming to see our tree the highlight of anyone’s Christmas season.  In fact, our Christmas Eves and Christmas Days were never spent under our own roof.

You must also understand that I at no time suggested that CTE reduce the size of his own tree, which to this day easily consumes at least 75% of the available square footage in his cramped living room.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t shake the feeling that we somehow had deprived him of an essential element to his enjoyment of the Christmas Season.

After cleaning up from the party, I hurried  to my office and typed up a quick letter to Santa to ask whether we had committed an egregious faux pas by foregoing a B-I-G tree as the center-point of our holiday decorations.

Santa’s response?

“Ho-Ho-Ho!  Merry Christmas!”

I love Santa.