You will find 8 million stories in the naked city, and not so many are in regards to the War on Christmas, but this 1 is. Los Angeles is similar to that. People tend to call home day to day without contemplating the truth that they are on the leading lines of a War On Christmas. Or that they’re naked. But I do. I have to. It’s my job. Who am I? MaryC. I’m a public school teacher.  

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(cue Dragnet music)

December 14. A perfect winter day in southern California. Only 11 days before 
Christmas, and the good folks of Los Angeles were going about their ordinary lives: in the downtown office buildings, disgruntled temps put cover sheets on TPS reports, at the Farmers Market, housewives dickered with greengrocers over the price of Bartlett pears, whilst in West Hollywood, apple-cheeked women with a stars in their eyes and dreams inside their hearts searched for someone cosign the financing due to their breast enhancement. Pretty typical. But under the comforting rhythms of everyday activity, this day was anything but typical and the students at my school knew it. Most of us knew it. We’d a particular visitor coming that day. A man many know as Santa Claus. Alias St. Nicholas. Alias Kris Kringle. No distinguishing marks or scars. 

He was coming to provide toys to the kids of our “inner-city” school. A dangerous assignment, but he was ready, and so were our men in blue, khaki and suits. Yes, Santa Claus was visiting town, with a Secret Service escort. Tall, broad-shouldered men with sunglasses and radio earpieces, any among that has been prepared to take a bullet for Santa. More importantly, they were prepared to kill for Santa. So I warned my first graders against making any sudden movements or rushing to Santa to give him an embrace, lest that roly-poly belly that shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly was the last thing they ever saw.

9:30 am. We marched out to the playground. The students were happy and excited. I was tense and worried, and constantly scanned the crowd of children and adults. I’d been warned by battle-scarred veterans of the War on Primary Colored Napkins that we were under attack. Would one of these simple people try to prevent Christmas from happening at a public school? Could the Secret Service agents wait an assault of pro-Happy Holiday sentiments until Bill O’Reilly arrived together with his bag filled with horror?

Sirens started initially to sound in the length, and an armored limousine came roaring onto the playground. Screams of delight rose from the crowd as Santa himself exited the vehicle, surrounded by a crack team of grim-faced security elves.

Carols were sung, and the Bomb Squad truck arrived with the presents. Yes, even Santa’s presents had become potential weapons in this Yuletide Battle, but these gifts have been screened for explosives and deemed safe to hand out.

The students set up and waited patiently due to their turn. That’s when HE showed up. The villain who’s tried to steal Christmas EVERY YEAR since 1966. It was the Grinch. The children noticed him right away, and screamed for the surrounding agents to DO something. But like George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden, the Feds apparently just weren’t that worried about the Grinch. 

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But our students eyed the green monster warily, shouting every time he crept nearer to Santa. That’s when we spotted it. The gun. The Grinch was strapped, and he’d come to waste Father Christmas (better known by his hiphop name, Malcolm Xmas). Suddenly, everything appeared to move in slow motion: The Grinch’s paw going to his belt to retrieve the weapon. The children’s shouts of terror, fingers pointing to the danger. The gun was from the belt. It was aiming. But not at Santa! At the kids! The fiend! Water sprayed forth in a lethal (well…a moist) fountain. Students ducked and covered! And that’s when the agents reacted. 

The Grinch was wrestled to the ground. Nightsticks disguised as candy canes where whipped out and used to bludgeon the monster. His hands were cuffed, and the kids cheered while the verdant fiend was frog marched off the playground. I saw one agent rip open an offer of glow sticks, and follow the entourage off to a waiting van. Someone was going to acquire some pretty interesting Holiday Photos inside their Christmas card this year.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I lined my students around return to your room. The class wrote their names on their presents and happily set up for lunch. They didn’t seem afflicted with their near extinction (or collateral drenching) at the hands of anti-Christmas insurgents from the ACLU and Media Matters. Or perhaps a Treasury agent who drew the short stick and had to wear the goofy green felt costume. But we survived. We’d been on the leading lines and lived to share with about it. I thought the danger was over. I was wrong.