I know Santa Claus personally. I met him when I was 5 years old. He brought me a desk, a doll and a tricycle. And we didn't even have a fireplace. I have believed in him ever since.
Through the years I have never stopped putting my faith in the magic he brings to the world at Christmas. People send greetings to friends they haven't seen in years. Schoolchildren provide gifts and food to the have-nots. Churches are filled.There are a lot of impostors out there - Santas who drop in for a beer after work, sell storm doors, alight from helicopters to dedicate a supermarket or hang out at the car wash.
Tina Brown, editor of the New Yorker, recently rejected a picture of one of the pseudo-Santas for the cover of the magazine because it showed Santa relieving himself against a wall.
The Santa business has clearly gotten out of hand. I think we should have laws protecting him like we do the flag and the tags on pillows.
Children have a tough time trying to find the real Santa without some yahoo dressing up in a cheap suit and phony beard, giving away soap samples at supermarkets.
I'll make it easy for you.
The real Santa Claus never owns an answering machine, goes on a diet or catches a cold. He never calls ahead.
He doesn't carry a Medicare card, water ski, get food caught in his beard or eat fruitcake. He doesn't know what politically correct means. He still employs dwarfs . . . not the vertically challenged.
He never appears on talk shows, gets a divorce or worries about his reindeer being illegally parked. He doesn't pay taxes, own a tuxedo, endorse cat food or political candidates.
If you see a thin Santa with low cholesterol, he's a fake. If you see Santa entering a men's room, he's a phony. Don't even look twice at the Santa who is smoking a cigarette on the loading dock of a department store.
The real Santa is an enigma. He reveals himself only to people who believe.
I believe in him because I need to. In a less-than-perfect world, where every day our anger for one another erupts into acts of violence, I need to know that once a year a mythical man in a red suit appears to remind us there is still some goodness out there.
Accept no substitutes.
1993 Erma Bombeck
Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate