The many masks of Santa

I was the standard age of around 7 or 8 when I found out that Santa isn't real (t was my sister's fault -- she had located the stash of "Santa" gifts under our parents' bed and showed them to me). We pretended for a few more years after that so that my little brother could make it to at least age 5 thinking it was Santa who brought him that original Playstation console ... and then the jig was up, and from then on we always knew it was our parents who bought us all those sweet presents year after year.

Mom, however, just wouldn't let the whole Santa thing die. She refused. And so every year, it seemed that more and more of the presents under the tree were from Santa ... and every year, we seemed to be visited by more and more specific Santas, as if there were a whole fleet of Santas traveling the Earth each Christmas Eve, dropping off socks or shoes or grilling supplies or whatever certain item that one Santa specialized in.

This is an artist's rendering of "Sock Santa," a frequent visitor to our home.

As the years passed, Mom's overly-specific Santafying became more and more insane. "Sock Santa" and "Grilling Santa" gave way to such madness as "WSU Clothing Santa" (gee, i wonder what could be in there?!), "Roll It Out Santa" (this gift turned out to be a massage roller), and "Knife Set Santa."

Knife Set Santa is not as popular with the children.

Things had officially gone too far when she started switching the order of the words so that now, it wasn't Sock Santa coming to the house, but Santa Sock -- as if "Santa" were his title and "Sock" is his given name. Imagine my brother-in-law's surprise when he saw a gift under the tree with this tag on it:

And what did Santa Clamp bring him??

If you guessed "a hat!" ... then you, sir, are an idiot ... because Santa Clamp brought Chris the clamp tool he'd been eyeing!

This is what I assume Santa Clamp looks like.

But, all joking aside, it was a wonderful Christmas with my wonderful family, made even more amazing by a visit from Santa Chip:

He brought us ... chips.

Hope the fleet of Santas brought you everything you wanted this year! And if "Size 9 Black Leather Boot Santa" skipped your house this year, don't worry -- Santa Amazon.com works year-round :-)