Where is Santa?

A couple of Jehovah's Witnesses knocked on my door this past Saturday, telling me - once again - the world was coming to an end. My initial reaction was to close the door in their faces, but that would have been rude, so I told them I would give a dollar to their cause if they would answer two questions. They agreed upon two dollars, and I had to take their magazine "The Watchtower".

Ok, I said...question #1: Which iteration of "The world is coming to an end" are we on? I explained that I'd heard it in 1975, 1976, 1979, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2001, and now 2006. So was I up-to-date, or were there other world-ending scenario's that I was unaware of?

They declined to answer, but I gave them the dollar anyways. I moved on to my second question. "Have you seen Santa Claus?" This question seemed to set them on edge, and they explained to me that there was no Santa Claus...however, if you flipped the letters around, one could easily see the word Santa becoming S-a-t-a-n. Ohhhhhhh....so Santa is actually Satan?

"Yes" was their reply. Santa is actually Satan in disguise, henceforth the homonym...or is it synonym? Dammit, I haven't watched "Jeopardy" in a while, so I forgot the name of the category. "Potent Potables"?...Naaahhh, that's not it. "Flippety-Floppity words"?...ummmmm, maybe. Anagrams I believe is the proper term, but that always sounds like something you received from your Aunt in Iowa during the Second World War.

So I looked at them and said, "Do you believe in Angels?" They replied with a rather dull look in their eyes, "You mean dead people who look over the living?" I said yes, and they pondered this for a moment, then said "Yes, we probably do". This lead to me saying, "If I'm not wrong, Angels turned around is A-n-g-l-e-s, which means that geometry must be the subject of the Gods...which means since I probably flunked Geometry because I was more concerned with what was under Susan Schulteiz's skirt than the differential of the Isocelese Triangle and the obtuse non-sequitur squared, then I need to be saved, and I mean in a hurry. But in the meantime, have you or have you NOT seen Santa Claus?"

They left silently with their two dollars in hand, and I successfully proved that the difference between a Jehovah's Witness and a smart ass was simply a bundle of brain cells unused by one of the two...you decide which.

On the soccer field one day soon after, I looked at fellow parent - a Doctor named Schwartz - and asked him, "Have you seen Santa Claus?"

"Oh hell yeah", he answered. "Thank goodness for Santa Claus. He's all over the mall, and my cousin's business - down nearly 13% since July - is booming because of the big guy..."Have I seen Santa Claus?" "You betcha...last night on the NASDAQ report...I saw him totally."

I decided to go down to the Islam AlSalam - "Peace is Islam" Mosque. In there, I found an Imam willing to talk to me. At first, he thought I was going to ask him why so many Muslims profess peace but do so with the sword - or the car bomb in this case - but he was surprised when I asked him, "Do you believe the world is going in the right direction?".

He responded eloquently and at great length about the state of the world as he saw it. I then asked him, "Have you seen Santa Claus?", to which he got very agitated and said in no-uncertain terms that Santa was the Great Satan. I said to him, "I thought President Bush was the Great Satan?", and he replied that he was indeed, but during December, he was replaced as the Great Satan by the fat guy in the red suit. It was all becoming pretty clear now...Santa was the Great Satan, President Bush was the pretty decent Satan, and there wasn't much difference between a Jehovah's Witness and a Muslim, save for a few pounds of TNT and a '76 Datsun no one was using any more.

But the question still remained, where the heck was Santa?

I once again found myself on a sports field. There was a little girl trying her best to hit the ball off of a tee...try as she might, she kept swinging the bat in an awkward motion and hitting the tee...the ball falling harmlessly to the ground. Her mother and father were hiding their heads in their hands, afraid to acknowledge the child struggling was their own.

No Santa Claus here.

I was at a Friday night High School football game - a very exciting and stimulating playoff game - and I was seated next to two parents who didn't know the difference between an "first down" and a "first kiss". I asked them why they were there...and they told me "Their son was in the band and they were there to watch and support him." I asked how he was doing, and they told me they didn't care, as long as he was there and they were there to see it.

I couldn't help but wonder if I was getting closer to my answer.

A friend of mine owns a business. At the business, she puts up a tree each year, and on the tree hang small cards and the like with the names of poor children that have nothing. Also on the card is the individual child's wish from "Santa". The idea is employees take a name, and buy the gift the child wants, in essence becoming Santa to a child who otherwise would stop believing when he or she received nothing.

The United States Marine Corps has for many decades run a program called "Toys for Tots", in which Marines all over the country set up stations where old, broken, or long-forgotten toys are collected, repaired, repainted, and redistributed to needy children all over this nation. The repair work is done solely and happily by otherwise big, tough, Marine guys...who find a small part of their heart to soften to do such a task.

Where is Santa? Well, he's not necessarily in a song...but he could be. He for the most part is not contained in any religious atmosphere, which is astounding since peace, love, and compassion are Santa's greatest virtues, and this is what each church, synagogue, mosque, and temple is supposed to be about.

He's here alright, we've just lost sight of him in the Black Friday, political bs-ing, and gimme-that-Cabbage-Patch-doll-it's-the-last-one world we have created. Santa is out there, contained in each and every one of us....from Marines to Band parents, and everything in between...he's there, alive still - but on a bit of a life support system. It's up to all of you to bring him out. Instead of diving for the last HDTV on sale, hold the door for someone who may actually get there before you because of your act of kindness. Stop complaining for a few weeks and do something to bring about change. And speaking of change...the guy who sleeps at the 7-Eleven and hasn't bathed in 3 months? Give him some of your change, and if he decides to use it to buy a bottle of Boone's Farm wine, so what? Let him buy it and stop being such a moralist.

Yeah...honestly the question isn't, "Where is Santa?" The question is, "Why has he stopped being who he was supposed to be?"

Peace. No...seriously this time. Peace.