The house a few doors down is putting on a vulgar display this Christmas. Not only do they have their windows and front porch tastefully done in perfectly aligned white mini-lights, they have spotlights accenting the house and a small tree in front of it, with matching white mini-lights and a small Santa topper.
At some point during a festive gathering at my house, an old friend of mine pointed out the neighbor’s display.
Look at that Santa topper. Pfft that’s a bit showy, isn’t it?
And just like that, the seed was planted. Perhaps it was the homemade rocket-fuel nog I had been consuming, perhaps it was that our only outdoor decoration was also a tree, albeit one with a few strings of multi-coloured lights, and one of those strings may have malfunctioned, leaving us with a tree that had a (non) glaring paucity of lights in its mid-section. Whatever it was, I began to fixate on that Santa tree topper and my desire to remove it.
You will be mine, fat man. Mine.
Before we go any further here, can I just address the comments I am sure to get from some of my friends: That so-called obsession I had with the nutcracker across the road was not about it being a giant nutcracker in someone’s front yard. It was about the fact that that goddamn giant nutcracker, all six feet of him, WAS STILL THERE IN APRIL. Why would anyone leave a piece of seasonal decor out that long? They removed every other piece of Christmas trash from their yard and still the nutcracker remained, staring at my home, day in and day out. I couldn’t walk down the driveway without feeling his beady stare all over me. In my dreams, his clacking jaw would dis-joint and swallow me whole. God how I hated him.
But I don’t feel that way about this Santa. I’m not sure how to put my feelings into words, I just know that I want him in my possession, to stroke and gloat over. Yet at the same time, I don’t want to be arrested - especially not for something as lame as stealing a tree topper. If I’m going to be tossed in the back of a cop car, I had better be wearing a fez, with the blood of someone I barely even know on my hands, and police standing at the edge of the lawn giving an interview to the local news that is peppered with statements such as ”never seen anything like it,” and “stole his mini-car” and “could not fit the body in the trunk, at which time the neighbors alerted us.”
And so it was that as we pulled into the drive last night, I again stared at the Santa tree topper and then turned to Mr Wry and shouted “I’VE GOT IT!” He was momentarily startled and then a look of dread crept over his face.
“Got what?” (In his experience, my eureka moments are often accompanied by plans that are not always well fleshed out and may involve some physical peril for him.)
“That Santa tree topper. I’ve got the perfect plan for how to steal it!”
“Oh God, look what have they ever–”
“I’LL BUY ONE JUST LIKE IT!”
“What?”
“I’ll buy one just like it, steal theirs, stick it on the top of OUR tree and then when the cops come because he claims I’ve stolen his Santa, I can show them my receipt.”
“You know, that’s almos–”
“AND THEN NEXT YEAR I’LL STICK BOTH OF THEM ON MY TREE AND FLIP THEM THE BIRD, BECAUSE THE COPS WILL THINK THEY’RE THE CRAZY ONES!”
“You realize that you have practically admitted there that you are, in fact, the crazy one. You’ll just be fooling the cops.”
“How about you get in the house before they notice you staring at their Santa.”
“I AM NOT STARING AT THEIR SANTA!”
“Calm down. The neighbors are going to think you’ve got a thing for their decor.”
The vision of Mr Wry, head slumped on the steering wheel, quietly muttering “how to win friends and influence people” is one that I will cherish for many Christmases to come.
Not like I’m going to cherish that Santa, though. Precious.
