Where's Kris Kringle?

I haven't spotted Santa Claus even once this season. n Took a walk on Madison Ave. a week ago from 44th St. up to 79th and saw plenty of fat men with white beards, ascots and gold-tipped canes, but no St. Nick. Hung out in the midst of Times Square for a half hour last Friday while MUGGER III was at a Lazer Park birthday party?and was horrified when a harried woman, loaded down with Toys R Us packages, crossed a street against the traffic and one of her kids nearly got clipped by a speeding ambulance?and there wasn't even a Salvation Army rummy pulling from a pint bottle of blackberry brandy while fumbling with his bell. And forget downtown: despite an effort by a few beleaguered restaurants and retailers to lift the gloomy mood by draping red & green lights on their front doors, it's still a black & white atmosphere south of Houston St. Visitors from the North Pole could be on every corner, but they'd be invisible to my eye.

Maybe the paranoid Sens. Tom Daschle, Patrick Leahy and Christopher Dodd have sequestered Santa in the same bureaucratic prison as Eugene Scalia, Otto Reich and any number of qualified judicial nominees sent to Congress by the Bush administration. Or it could be that the playful adults who dress up as Mr. Claus at the Christmas rush each year, sometimes to pick up a few bucks, others at no charge, just don't have the will this December.

I'm optimistic that once the calendar reads "2002" there will be an enormous boost of morale in the United States: I don't know a single person who isn't looking forward to New Year's Day. In the meantime, as New Yorkers fake their way through the holidays, most hoping that Osama bin Laden's mutilated body will be paraded through the desert of Afghanistan, are any adults singing "Joy to the World" with an ounce of bounce or conviction?

It's an extraordinary period in world history: the next two years will certainly equal in importance, and probably surpass, the domino-like fall of communism in the late 80s. At this time in 2003, as the primary campaign is under way in Iowa and New Hampshire, with John Edwards, John Kerry and maybe even Al Gore slugging it out in town-meeting debates, who knows what they'll be jabbering about? Probably the environment. With any luck, and the ouster of Paul O'Neill, the economy will be humming, and those Democrats will just go through the motions?and waste millions of campaign contributions?against a landslide-bound George W. Bush. It's far too early to tell, but the Dems can forget about gun control as an issue, and it's possible the Republican base will include increasing numbers of Jews, Hispanics and union members.

It's likely the country will still be at war, with our military finishing off the job President Bush began on Sept. 11. If events break in favor of the U.S., the change in global politics will be staggering: a content Iraq celebrating the one-year anniversary of Saddam Hussein's death; the citizens of Iran delivered from the tyranny of an ayatollah-run regime; Russia prospering economically and competing with Britain and Israel for number-one ally status; relative peace in the Mideast, with Arafat a forgotten dictator and the Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbollah all extinguished; Castro in retirement somewhere abroad as a young cabal of leaders brings democracy to Cuba; and Saudi Arabia forced to clean up its corrupt government or else sell oil to some other country, maybe Sweden or the new nation called Berkeley. Think the sheiks would go for that?

Alternatively, India and Pakistan will blow each other up, China and North Korea might join forces to wage World War IV and gas masks won't be a mere fashion accessory in New York City. In that case, say hello to President John McCain or Commander-in-Chief Rudy Giuliani.

At least my kids aren't letting visions of poisonous terrorists dampen their holiday spirit. This past weekend we decorated the Christmas tree with an amalgam of ornaments from the 1940s, 50s and 60s, as well as those picked up from vacations in Mexico, Chile, St. Lucia, Nevis, Bergdorf's, Austria and Argentina. Junior was so enthralled last Friday when the spruce arrived that he slept on the living room couch that night just to be near it. The next day, after Mrs. M. completed the hardest job?stringing the glittery lights?the boys and I trimmed the tree and, miraculously, just one delicate item (a gold & green donkey) bit the dust.

Michael Kelly, one of this generation's great journalists, wrote a splendid bit about Christmas traditions in the Dec. 12 Washington Post. He said: "One growing issue is the white vs. colored lights debate. Like all matters of taste, this is also a matter of class. White lights are high-class; colored lights [Uh-oh, doesn't Kelly mean "African-American lights"? Just joshing.] are somewhat less so. White lights make the statement that one is a refined sort who appreciates that less is more and who celebrates Christmas (and life in general) in such a fashion that one would not be absolutely mortified if Martha Stewart dropped by unexpectedly for tea. Colored lights make the statement that one is the sort of person who believes that Christmas is not Christmas without an electric sled and reindeer on the lawn, an electric Santa on the roof, an electric Frosty by the front gate and an electric Very Special Person in a manger on the porch.

"Most of the houses in my neighborhood are white-light houses, and I have to admit they are lovely, but I was raised in a colored-light family, and I am raising [my sons] to be colored-light men too. They do not take a lot of convincing on this. Boys are naturally colored-lighters."

And so it is in our household. But still no Santa Claus! Junior and MUGGER III are getting a bit old for a lap-sit at some department store; in fact, our oldest son has quietly declared he no longer believes in the ancient man with whiskers. I blame Limp Bizkit for this minor calamity, but at least he's kept mum on the subject with his brother, who at seven is straddling the fence about Santa's existence. I was that age when the S.C. myth was punctured for me: on Christmas Eve, back in '62, I was tossing a football with my neighbor Dicky Howard when at some point he gleefully told me the whole milk & cookies routine was a scam.

I think Dicky was cranky because he'd had a crummy Chanukah and wanted to unload the turds in his pocket to Christian friends. I was skeptical (the day before I sat with a Santa in Huntington's W.T. Grant's), but later that night as I fitfully slept on a cot in the playroom?one of my brothers was home from college and had claimed my bunkbed?I heard noises from the living room. I got up, peered upstairs and, sure enough, there were my parents spreading presents all around. As the baby of the family, my loot was under the tree; the older boys had sofas or chairs for their stuff. It was a rude awakening, but the next morning, as my dad made pancakes for the family?aside from grilling burgers and dogs for summer barbecues, that was his annual cooking exercise?I didn't let on when everyone asked if Santa had judged me naughty or nice.

Anyway, 15 years ago, just a couple of months after the Red Sox booted the World Series to the Mets, I took a turn at playing Santa in one of Baltimore's Harborplace pavilions. Hard to believe, but as an owner of City Paper the Mayor's office considered me a celebrity, and so I was fitted into a costume with three pillows for my belly and a scratchy white beard.

As I recall, Captain Chesapeake, a local tv personality, was scheduled before me, and we bantered in the dressing room, looking forward to the '87 mini-golf tournament that was held outside City Hall. Capt. C. was a hard act to follow?this guy was a real B'More celeb?but I enjoyed myself enormously, spending time with little kids telling me stories about their schools and neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the conversations I had with the children didn't go over too well with their parents: my suggestions of books (Treasure Island, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog) instead of the popular toys of the moment got me yanked from Santa's throne in less than an hour. Gee whiz. And Baltimoreans the following year were surprised when the Mayor's slogan, "The City That Reads," was quickly satirized as "The City That Breeds."

So that's an Xmas story pulled from my bag of memories. Don't know about you, but at the least it got my mind off those pesky feminists who've found soulmates in Kabul; the morons claiming John Ashcroft, who justifiably flipped the bird to his congressional inquisitors, has outlawed free speech; and the tsk-tsk-tsk editorial writers at The New York Times who, not used to an honest president, were outraged that Bush withdrew from the ABM treaty.

Dec. 17

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