A LIKELY STORY: SCROOGE, RUDY, MAN IN RED DEBATE CHRISTMAS

Ebeneezer Scrooge looked up from his cards and made an announcement: "I have to go to the toilet."

The rest of us moaned. Old Scrooge had just gone to the bathroom moments before and every time he left, it held the rest of us up. And me sitting with three beautiful queens.

The four of us only got together once a year, on Christmas Eve no less, to play a few hands of poker. With everyone so busy, on this night especially, we only had a couple of hours so any delay was annoying.

"Maybe you should lay off the gin and tonics Eb," Santa Claus said and then cackled. His laugh was high and shrill, nothing like the boisterous ho-ho-hos he musters for the kids. "Besides, Rudy and me'll have to be going in about an hour," he said, looking at his watch.

"He's nearly out of money anyway," Rudolph chimed in, his nose now red from the scotch as well as his famous genetic deformity. "You'd think he wouldn't have given it ALL away but nooooo..." Something Rudy isn't as well known for, but what he has in abundance, is sarcasm.

I glanced at my watch, too. It was a quarter past three. If I wasn't home by five, Lori would kill me. And if I tried that playing-cards-with-fictional-Christmas-characters excuse again, she certainly would put coal in my stocking and lead in my ...

"Hectic night ahead," Santa mused, interrupting my thoughts.

"Busiest night of the year, huh?" I asked politely.

"Duh," Rudolph said, downing another shot of scotch. "Not that it really matters. Not anymore."

This caused Santa's brow to furrow and his lips to curl downward.

"Now Red," he warned, "don't get on that again."

"What do you mean, Rudy?" I had to ask.

"Watch what you say," Santa said. "Remember he's press."

"But you know what I'm saying Nick," Rudolph pleaded. The conversation was obviously one they'd shared before. "I think Christmas has just gone down the tubes since the old days." He motioned his black paw in my direction but didn't look at me. "Especially in HIS country. It's the rape of an idea. And you agree with me, if you're honest."

"The rape of an idea," Santa scoffed. "You give a reindeer a couple of night classes and all of a sudden he's Jean Paul Sartre."

But I knew what Rudolph was talking about. It's become a common argument about Christmas, that it's become too commercial and the real reason for the season has become lost.

"Well, it's true," Rudolph said, sounding a bit hurt.

"You going on about Christmas again?" Scrooge said, returning from the bathroom and sitting in his chair.

"Yes, and you of all people know it's true," Rudolph told Scrooge. "They'd as soon get a gift and watch football as give a penny to the poor. What's it going to take, the ghosts to visit every blasted one of them? People spending $200 on a stupid Tickle Me Elmo but they don't have time to stop and think about what it's all for and whose birthday it is."

"And what that baby would eventually do for us all," Scrooge added.

"Well maybe it's true and maybe it ain't, at least for some people," Santa said. "But it's not true for everyone. In the morning, the kids will be opening their presents and the men will watch football in the afternoon. The women will cook up a meal. And even then some of them will take time to count their blessings. But tonight ..."

He stopped for a long moment, reflecting, and then went on: "Tonight the churches will be full of people who will stop and think about that child who changed the world."

"Bah, humbug," Rudolph scowled. He then noticed who he was with and laughed. So did Scrooge.

There was no more talk of it that night. We finished up our hand and Santa won with a full house. He wins every year.

We went our separate ways but I couldn't get the conversation out of my head. Who was right? Has the season become nothing but a marketing ploy or do people still remember Christ and the reason for his birth?

I think the answer is different for all of us. But if we take a moment to look into our hearts, we can find the answer.

~Scott Moyers is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.