The Grinch Almost Stole Santa

It's the first of December, so it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Ah yes, it's almost my favorite time of year. Truthfully, I'm a summer person and I hate winter -- the cold, the snow and all that. But, as I've said before, I do love Christmas. I love the music, the decorations, the tree and the spirit of the season. See, e.g., The New Fruitcake.

Now I'm not into rushing the holiday season, so I haven't put out the decorations or begun playing my Christmas music collection yet. And trust me, I have a lot of Christmas decorations, that go in every little nook and cranny around the house -- it's my only Martha Stewart quirk. And I also have quite a holiday music compilation too, from religious to jazz, classical to traditional.

In the next week so or, I'll start with some occasional Christmas songs and then start the annual tree debate with my husband. If it were up to him, the tree wouldn't go up until Christmas eve. I want to enjoy the season as much as possible, so I like to put it up a week or two before Christmas. So we bargain over how early is acceptable (it always ends up sooner than he'd like, of course).

In case you couldn't guess, I have a number of different collections that I've accumulated over the years. One is my Santa collection (part of which is pictured above).

Last week-end my daughter and I cleaned out one of the basement rooms. She wants to have a place where she & her friends can hang out during the winter, without the parents being too close by. So we got rid of a bunch of old things that we don't use and left everything in our backyard until the night before garbage collection day. My husband then hauled everything out to the street the other night.

Later in the evening, he mentioned that he saved the Christmas stuff that I had thrown out, putting it in his trunk in a big bag to give to one of the local shelters. I looked up in confusion, saying that I didn't throw any Christmas things away. Turns out that I ended up storing a few of my Santas and other assorted decorations in a computer box last year. Somehow, it didn't get put on the shelf where I store the Christmas decorations.

When I was cleaning out, I thought the box just had old outdated equipment, so I ditched it. Luckily, it had rained and the top was wet. My husband looked in the box when he carried it out and saw the Christmas decorations. Disaster was averted -- I would have been so bummed if I couldn't find my Santas when I brought out all of my decorations.

Old Saint Nick must like me, since he sent me an early present. He saved my Santas.

For a preview of what's to come, see previous year's trees, The Christmas Tree and Oh, Christmas Tree.