It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...
For the past few weeks, I have been negligent in my duty to air out Marlene since my husband’s new job started. He now has weekends off, so I have been spending my Saturdays with him. However, I must have been feeling masochistic this past weekend, as I decided to take Marlene out shopping.
The Sisters of Mercy (the nuns, not the techno-band) hosted a holiday craft sale last weekend. The last day of the sale was Saturday. This, too, was half-price day, that is, everything at the sale was half-price to get rid of stuff. Now, on Thursday and Friday, I had passed through the sale on my way to the other wing of the school. I scoped out the stuff: it was all good.
On Saturday, we started out an hour later than we planned, due to some issues with two of my younger brothers. We traversed across the city, reaching the motherhouse around 10:30. The sale was picked over! Everything I had an eye on for the past few days was gone. I did find a cool scarf, some ornaments, a gift for my husband and some other stuff.
Marlene had her eye on a religious statue. Every time we go to a sale run by some religious group, my mother buys some sort of religious statue. This particular statue was at least 2 feet tall. It was either St. Joseph or St. Francis; I didn’t observe it too closely. He was originally $20. However, since it was half-price day, he was $10. My mother studied the statue closely; I could tell this would be the treasure she would take home from the sale. She then said, “I’ll come back for him later.”
This was a mistake.
Five minutes later, when we walked by the table, the saint was gone! Marlene somewhat panicked, looked around, and then said, “Where the hell did the statue go?”
I spotted him sticking out of a large shopping bag. Another shopper had snatched him up when Marlene’s back was turned! “I’m glad he’ll have a nice home with you,” said one of the sisters to the lady.
The woman then walked around the sale once more to find other treasures. Marlene followed her, hoping the woman would relinquish the statue. It never happened.
On the way out of the motherhouse, my mother said, “God must not have wanted me to have that statue.”
“That’s not true,” I said, “You didn’t pick it up right away. Someone else took it. It happens on half price day.” I looked at what she was carrying. “What is that?”
She proudly held up a ceramic figure—a decrepit Mrs. Claus---sitting alone on a wooden bench. “Isn’t this cool?,” Marlene asked. “When I bought it, the guy checking out stuff just held it and looked at it. He couldn’t figure out what it is.”
“I can’t figure out what it is,” I told her.
I wanted to stop at Kauffman’s on the way home to pick up a pair of shoes. Marlene wanted to check out the houseware section, especially the Christmas stuff, as she found a cool nutcracker for my brother there two weeks ago.
It must be popular to collect Santa figurines, as there were many on display. They were not just your traditional red-suited fat man—there was Outdoors Santa, Tennis Santa, Golf Santa, and probably the most bizarre of all, Hippie Santa.
Hippie Santa is about fourteen inches tall. He wears a headband instead of the customary hat, and a leather-fringe vest, tie-dyed shirt, and a huge peace medallion.
Marlene was excited.
“I really can’t afford him,” she said with Hippie Santa tucked under her arm.
“I’ll buy him for you as your Christmas gift,” I offered.
She made a face that indicated this was totally unacceptable. She took Hippie Santa to the register and paid for him.
On the way home, I said to my mother, “You know, you got a little bit of white trash in you.”
“I know”, my mother said with dignity, “But I don’t know where it comes from.”
