Well, it’s official. Pope Francis has been named the Time magazine Person of the Year, narrowly beating out the president of Iran, Miley Cyrus and Santa Claus.
Congratulations and Merry Christmas to the pope, but this month is really all about Santa. And his heavenly pal Jesus, of course.
They team up together each December to turn out the hottest holiday on the cold-weather calendar — Christmas.
Amid all the excitement, this can be a confusing time of year even for veteran Christmas kringlers like us. So it’s always good to have a little refresher on some of the highlights of the holiday.
We’ll brush up on some Christmas do’s and don’ts, share tannenbaum trivia and review fun “facts” about Jesus, trees and mistletoe.
Christmas No-No No. 1: Martha Stewart and other leading domestic experts agree that a host/hostess should never serve reindeer steaks at any Christmas gathering (not even if lovingly seasoned with Rudolph’s Meat Tenderizer).
Of course, one of the most important holiday symbols — right up there with inflatable snowmen and ridiculously garish Christmas sweaters — is the Christmas tree (also known as a fir, spruce or evergreen, or sometimes a tannenbaum).
Christmas No-No No. 2: Do not (repeat, DO NOT), when waiting in the security line at the airport, make any jokes about your awesome “tannenbaum.”
Acceptable decorations for a traditional Christmas tree include white or colored lights, tinsel, paper chains, bulb-type ornaments, novelty ornaments ranging from elves to Elvis, strings of popcorn, candy canes, little bells, angels and stars, pretend icicles (and pickles), make-believe snow, miscellaneous shiny baubles and tiny saviors in mini nativity scenes.
Also considered perfectly fine to spruce up the pine: a plastic Jesus, metal Jesus or wooden Jesus, along with any Jesus crafted from stone, glass or space-age polymers.
Inappropriate and/or ill-advised decorations for a traditional Christmas tree include fire, rocks, old corn cobs, obscene or X-rated material, Easter stuff, jumbo cloves of garlic, things that do not belong to you, myrrh, broken glass, household refuse and shiny, silvery razor wire.
Christmas No-No No. 3: Do not — no matter how persuasive the sales pitch — purchase over-the-counter myrrh as a present. Yes, I have been vigilant in reporting the dangers of this once-popular Christmas gift, which can cause a variety of ailments ranging from rickets to bubonic plague. But don’t take it from me; listen to the experts.
“Look, Jesus was exposed to a whole bunch of myrrh as a baby and we all know how things turned out for him,” says Dr. Trey Weisman, co-author of the new book “Myrrh: Get That Junk Away From Me.”
Christmas can be so jam-packed with revelry that we forget the holiday can be scary or intimidating for the little ones. For example, it may be important to reassure them that, no, the fat, bearded man who is scheduled to gain entry to their home late at night through the chimney — Santa Claus — does not actually have claws … like Wolverine.
If a wee one is wondering, you can explain that, yes, they are both superheroes. However, Wolverine is one of the legendary X-Men, whereas Santa — a benevolent, red-clad mutant known to fly everywhere in the world in less than 24 hours — is the undisputed leader of the Xmas-Men.
Elf on the Shelf is another wonderful Christmas activity for the children, but the mischievous little pixie can also seem creepy to some. So it may be necessary to assure them that — contrary to urban legend — the elf definitely did not slay (sleigh?) a family of five in suburban Wisconsin last week.
Moving right along, everything you need to know about mistletoe — an aphrodisiac so powerful there are those who believe it was somehow involved in the Immaculate Conception.
As holiday custom has it, a man and woman meeting under a sprig of hanging mistletoe are obliged to share a smooch. But it’s a tradition that can also get quite scandalous, as each year we seem to hear of some traumatized tot who reportedly “saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus.”
Next week (maybe) join me once again for more Christmas lore and little-known “facts” about such quintessential Christmas characters as Jimmy Stewart, Ebenezer Scrooge and Charlie Brown; Jack Frost, the Little Drummer Boy and noted reindeer Vixen.
What’s that? Yes, that would be my fourth straight Sunday writing a column about Christmas. So what? You can’t tell me a reader could ever get sick of endless jokes about eggnog and yule logs. C’mon. I’ll believe that when reindeer fly or when Noel freezes over.
— John Breneman
Holiday safety tips (Dec. 8, 2013)
Sprucing up Market Square for Christmas (Dec. 1, 2013)