All Wrapped Up in the Christmas Spirit

Every year, when I catch my first glimpse of a Christmas-oriented commercial, my eyes mist up, probably because I suddenly get the notion I’m having a heart seizure, as though Santa, between sips of Coke, has plunged his frosty, wool-mittened hand into my chest and started to squeeze.

The Nativity dread suddenly descends upon me: The tree and presents have yet to be bought, the lights hung, the cider mulled, the traffic navigated. Looming are the state-required viewings of “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the warring-ants mood at the malls, all to the endless chirpy cant of caramelized carols.

Go ahead and squeeze, Santa! Tear my heart out and feed it to Rudolph; anything to save me from this flocking Christmas rush!

Then I realize it’s only June--these ads sure start early--and I lighten up a bit. But only a bit, because I know how the time just disappears until suddenly, like now, it’s just two days until Christmas and I still haven’t sufficiently bought, hung, mulled or navigated yet.

Last year at this time I was musing, “Well, maybe I could send out New Year’s cards.”

You know you’ve really lost it when you find yourself doing your shopping Christmas morning at a convenience mart. That’s when you’re pushing a relative’s tact to the limit: “A half-gallon of milk? How thoughtful, dear. Oh, and some bungee cords? You really shouldn’t have.”

Actually, a convenience store would have suited me fine for some of my childhood Christmas purchases. My dad smoked a lot, still does, and probably will want to be buried with an eternal Tarryton burning above his grave, and I can’t remember any present that’s made him happier than the two years running when I left him gift-wrapped cartons of cigarettes under the tree.

I bought ‘em at a Mayfair market near where we lived, and along with the guilt I now feel at contributing to his delinquency, I also marvel at what trusting times those were:

“I’d like a carton of Tarryton filters please, mister.”

“You gotta be 18 to buy cigarettes, sonny.”

“They’re for my dad.”

“Well, OK then.”

I probably could have bought a fifth of Rebel Yell and driven myself home in a cement truck, if I’d only said it was for my dad.

Such innocent times, yet already my personal innocence was gone.

On a national scale, the Kennedy assassination may have pulled the rug out from under people’s image of living in a straightforward beneficent world; for each kid, though, that happens when we learn we’ve been lied to about Santa.

Traumatic though it was learning he didn’t exist, one only can imagine the potential for disenchantment if there really were a Santa Claus. His sort of gig doesn’t work so smoothly in the real world.

As they say in Lapland, you can’t hitch up a sleigh without some strings attached, and we’d doubtless be running exposes on a kickback-taking, white-supremacist, gun-running, union-busting Santa, one who’d built his empire on the backs of his sweaty little elves.

Tabloids would be running photos of Santa shacked up with the Easter Bunny, while Donner and Blitzen would be displaying whip scars on “Montel Williams.” And just where was Santa on Nov. 22, 1963?

So maybe we’re better off without Santa, though it does stick us with having to buy the presents.

I used to buy a lot of my gifts at Fedco, which, before classing up its image in recent years, had the atmosphere of an industrial-grade Pic ‘n’ Save, just the thing for the people on your list who like getting five-gallon tubs of mustard for Christmas. It was sort of like those discount warehouses where you can only buy mistletoe in shrink-wrapped bundles of 400.

Fedco does still turn up delightful buyer’s goofs. In the toy section of its Costa Mesa store recently, I spotted a whole rack of “Star Trek, the Next Generation” toys. All they had, though, were about 40 dolls of Q, the mischievous omniscient alien no one can stand, and a very aged Dr. McCoy who, even in toy form, clearly hasn’t bridged gently the years from one series to next.

Imagine the lopsided Christmas morning battles kids could stage with those characters, given that Q could pulverize the entire universe in less time than it takes Bones to mix a mint julep.

Other stores, I understand, are offering a new line of “Star Trek, the Cranky Old Generation” dolls this season. The $50 price seems a mite high, since you probably can get James Doohan to perform at your kid’s birthday party for less than that.

You’re going to spend money, no getting around that. I tried a couple of times to have a living Christmas tree, to do the ecology thing and to save buying one every year.

But, believe me, you can pamper and feed them all year long, and they’re still biologically programmed to drop straight dead the following November.

So it’s back to the merry tree lot, where trees that might otherwise amount to two of these newspapers are priced so high you’d think you’d stumbled into a marijuana plantation.

Getting value for your dollar is only one of the perils facing us shoppers. Perhaps the most taxing: trying to find any item of children’s apparel that doesn’t bear the simpering purple visage of Barney the dinosaur.

Sure, little kids love him. They love diaper squish too, but that doesn’t mean we go buy more of it at the mall. It’s up to adults to raise them above that.

There is nearly universal agreement among parents I know that Barney must die. Except they say it more like: BARNEY MUST DIE!!! BARNEY MUST DIE!!!! The only sticking point lies in reaching consensus on the slowest and most painful means of dispatching him.

Asparagus overdose? Asparagus overdose delivered by crossbow? Strangled by Babar? I like the idea of using a wine press. Then we can all celebrate around the tree with a nice purple glass of Barney wine, lifting our merry voices in thanks and joy.

T. Jefferson Parker’s column resumes in this spot in two weeks.