Dad wrestles 8-foot Santa for holidays

There's nothing like a China-made Santa to get you in the holiday spirit.

I spent Monday -- a day off -- out in the stiff breeze of winter trying to add some Christmas cheer to the front yard.

Joni and I used to dress up our front yard every Christmas with lighted reindeer, Christmas trees and even candy canes. But in recent years, we've been too busy to decorate the front lawn.

Our 9-year-old recently admonished us for this lack of good cheer.

To rectify the situation, I decided our yard needed at least one Christmas decoration.

And if you're only going to put up one, it might as well be big.

So I got out the giant, inflatable Santa.

It comes complete with a whole page of instructions.

The first thing you see on the instruction page is the word "caution" in big, bold letters. For good measure, the word is repeated twice.

"Do not attempt to inflate during unusually strong winds. If it becomes too windy for safe operation, simply allow your inflatable to deflate, secure it, and wait for better conditions," the instructions say.

This gave me pause for just a second. After all, it was windy on Monday. But I figured I could handle it.

So I rolled out the inflatable fabric, zipped up Santa's side, and plugged in the blower. Instantly, Santa began inflating on my driveway. At this point, Santa was on his side and began blowing around in the wind.

I wrestled Santa into my front yard, hoping that I wouldn't be crushed by the 8-foot character or that it would start soaring into the sky with me holding onto the nylon tethers for dear life.

I soon had Santa where I wanted him. But every time I positioned one of the three tethers, Santa would start wobbling in another direction, forcing me to wrestle him back into place.

Fortunately, no one was around to witness this act of holiday cheer except for the mailman, and he was too busy making his rounds to worry about one man's battle with Santa.

The Santa is designed to sit on three metal legs. But during the wrestling, the back leg kept slipping out, forcing me to abandon my attempt to straighten out the tethers and deal with the foundation problem.

Eventually, I managed to get Santa standing fairly erect.

The inflatable Santa has lights inside it so it glows at night.

Of course, the instructions caution that "electricity and water are a bad combination.

"Protect the electric fan and power cord from exposure to water," the instructions advise. But there are no actual instructions on just how to do it.

It seems this device is best used in calm, dry weather, like maybe July. But it's hard to convince most Americans to display an inflatable Santa in the middle of summer. So we have to make do with windy, wet conditions and hope Santa doesn't explode.

The back page has additional instructions. "When this product is placed on a live tree, the tree should be well maintained and fresh," the printed information sheet tells us. "If the product is placed on a tree, the tree should be well secured and stable."

I assume these instructions apply to Christmas tree lights and not an inflatable Santa.

For those of you who follow instructions to the letter, I advise you to remove Santa from your tree immediately.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.