12/22/2000

By / The Dallas Morning News

Holy mistletoe, we're heading into that stretch of time when nobody finds a good parking space, price checks take an eternity and what you thought someone wanted for Christmas is nowhere near what you proudly bought and wrapped.

Yes, it takes a lot of ingredients to make a traditional Christmas.

We'll start with a helpful list: Buy batteries (all sizes, you never know what you'll need), buy more tape, make sure you have jellied cranberry sauce ... oh, you caught me. That cranberry thing is a blatant message to my brother, Garry, and his wife, Brenita, who again this year are the hosts of our family holiday gathering. Their cooking puts the "mmmm" in Xmmmas.

Now that I think about it, I may have some cranberry sauce left from last year. I'll have to check those mystery containers behind my hollyjollyspouse Martha's Fourth of July Benjamin Franklinfurter casserole in the back of the refrigerator. What's the shelf life of cranberry sauce, anyway? Two or three centuries?

Maybe you've got special traditions, sights or events that make the season bright. You might as well make your own list as you read this while standing in line at the department store wrapping booth and wondering whether that's where the word "eternity" was coined.

Based on careful observation of the human condition, here are random thoughts about what makes Christmas Christmas.

• Driving around and looking at the festive lights. My twinklespouse, Martha, thinks she spotted this year's ideal Christmas house on North Winnetka Avenue in Oak Cliff – it's decorated with blue and green lights and a hint of merry red. My eccentricspouse also wrapped her vintage (and temporarily inert) Range Rover in thousands of twinkle lights this year. Standing in the cold, dark night and smiling at her achievement, she declared, "It's a happy lookin' car, idden it!" It's also why I didn't have gloves in the ice storm. I couldn't pry open the tightly wrapped Rover doors to get them.

• Watching a tape of the play A Tuna Christmas and the movies Miracle on 34th Street, Ernest Saves Christmas, Scrooged, A Christmas Carol, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and, of course, It's a Wonderful Life. I'm sure someone enjoys Susan Lucci as a female Scrooge in Ebbie each year. I've seen that movie. It's as soulless as a chad. It's like something reindeer might leave on your roof, and I don't mean hoofprints.

• Creating scenes – in a good way. Some families put up their miniature Nativity scenes in the house. Some have also learned to put the scene where the family dog can't nose in and dash away with the Baby Jesus figurine. A local family is trying to find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in the back yard, where it is believed the household mutt dropped it after a mad dash out the back door.

• And, of course, I'll daydream about my lamentable career as a seasonal clothing salesman for Montgomery Ward. By Thanksgiving, the bosses had sent me to the warehouse to finish the season on a delivery truck. It was only then that I came to appreciate the logistical skills of Santa's elves. They've probably never been threatened by an irate housewife who wanted a white icebox for Christmas but got one that was clearly marked "avocado."

So many memories make up a good Christmas that there's not a box big enough to hold them all. Be merry out there.

Larry Powell can be reached at 214-977-8487; P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, TX 75265; fax 214-977-8319 or at .

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