CHRISTMAS IN NOVEMBER (AND OCTOBER, SEPTEMBER, AUGUST....
A few years back, in the month of October, I noticed my wife dragging some boxes marked "Christmas Stuff" into our living room. I was a bit perplexed as to why she would be rummaging through the Christmas decorations well before we even reached Halloween.
"Oh," she noted, "Don't you remember? I always put out my Christmas village just before Halloween."
Now, I truly did not recall any such thing. In fact, my last recollection of the dreaded Christmas village is that she would put it out the weekend after Thanksgiving, giving her plenty of time to enjoy the sights and sounds of her little town before having to take it down the first week in January.
Before I go any further, let me describe my wife's Christmas village, as some may have visions of a few scattered houses on an end table or coffee table. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you were a miniaturized person, my wife's Christmas village would be a wonderful, roomy place in which to reside, a veritable miniature metropolis. It basically takes up about one-third of our entire living room, making it difficult, especially once the Christmas tree goes up, to move freely in that area. She has approximately forty or fifty houses of all shapes and sizes (residential homes, businesses, restaurants, dance halls, police stations, etc.). Each home or business is lit from inside. In addition, there are tiny Christmas lights decorated on some of the homes as well as streetlights, a moving trolley car, a railway, different sounds and music emanating from the village, and moving vehicles cruising up and down the main thoroughfare. She has snow-covered streets, and on the outskirts of town there is a small dairy farm, complete with several cows ruminating about what gifts they will be receiving for Christmas. There are various villagers scattered about town, pulling sleds, cutting down Christmas trees, etc. There is even a drive-in movie theatre, complete with a working movie screen (although, I don't think that it gets much business in the winter time). As I said, a nice little town in which to live, unless you are a human being who happens to want to watch television -"Kathy, I can't see what Monk is doing because your ski slope is blocking my vision!"
Anyway, since that first fateful day in October, the time of year my wife has assured me the village had always gone up, the construction date has slowly crept up earlier and earlier each year. A few years after the first October raising of the abomination, I caught her dragging those damnable boxes out a few days before Labor Day in September.
"Now, wait a minute," I declared. "I know for a fact you never start putting that stupid village up in September!"
"Oh, yes," she replied. "It has always gone up in September. Don't you remember that little rhyme I made up? 'When you see the kids of Jerry, out come the boxes and it's time to be merry'?"
"No, you're just making that up. You assured me a couple of years ago, even though I am quite certain you were lying even then, that the village always comes out in October, just before Halloween. Now, you'd have me believe you put it up in September?"
"Absent any compelling physical evidence to the contrary, I am sticking to my story and the village goes up."
So, she was trying to use legal jargon and mumbo jumbo on me. That's the last time I let her watch Law and Order, I thought. I did come up with another plan, however. I took out our digital camera, on the pretext of taking some nice shots of her village to compare it with photos of when it was fully assembled, and dated the photos on the digital prints. That way, I surmised, I could use them next year if she tries to creep the date up even before Labor Day (I saw her evil plan unfolding in my mind and had to do something to put a stop to it).
The following year, when she dragged out those boxes in August, I was ready.
"Hold your reindeer, young lady. I have to put my foot down sometime. The village has never, in recorded history, been put up in August! And I have proof!"
"Oh, of course it has always come out in August," she chimed in. "Don't you remember? It was up for that August hurricane we have a few years ago. The village took a dreadful hit and many of the roofs had to be replaced, not to mention the villagers going without power for quite some time."
"No way," I replied. "I took photos of the village last year, and I time-stamped them with the date you were assembling that monstrosity." When I went to our computer to access the photos, however, I had found that somehow they had been "accidentally" erased.
"Oh, well," my wife said in a sly tone. "I guess you should safeguard important photos better next time."
I was not defeated, however. I decided to have family members and friends sign affidavits that to the best of their recollection the village had never been assembled before August. I had the affidavits notarized and put them in a strong box for safekeeping. I had at least warded off any further encroachment of that village into the calendar year, I thought.
The following year, she decided to try to bring out the boxes in July. In my mind, I had her.
"Not so fast, Mrs. Claus!" I shouted. "I have legal evidence that this village has never before in human history been assembled in July!"
"Oh, don't be silly," she replied. "I always bring it out in July. Don't you remember the little rhyme I invented? 'In the month of July, Santa will fly'?"
"No!" I screamed. "I don't remember any such rhyme. I remember some made-up-on-the-spot rhyme about Jerry Lewis' kids and Labor Day a few years ago, but not this spurious poem you just created! Anyway, I have proof. Unbeknownst to you, I had some family members and friends sign official legal affidavits last year, stating that August was the earliest period they had ever seen you put up your village."
However, when I went to the strong box, the affidavits had mysteriously disappeared. Thinking that all I had to do was get the same people to sign another set of affidavits, I began calling around. Each person who had signed the affidavits had mysteriously disappeared as well. She is diabolical, I thought to myself. Is there no stopping this woman and her village? Mark off July now, as I could not furnish the proper proof.
This year, she pulled off the coup de gras. Instead of taking the village down in January, she left it up. Ostensibly, the reason was that we had family coming down in March, and she wanted to let them see the village. March came and went, and there the village stood. April and May went by. Finally, I mentioned this to her.
"Oh," she said, "we might as well leave the thing up at this point, since I am only going to have to drag out those boxes again next month."
Next month? June? Since when? I thought. It was at that point that I realized the only way to defeat her was to sell the house and start all over again. Anyone interested in a three-bedroom house with a slightly shrunken living room?
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