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Snows up to the stars? Hitch a ride with Santa. And in so many other ways, add sci-fi (Skywalker and Solo, Sulu and Spock?) as part of what the little ones look for in the skies — and maybe neighbors’ yards while going to church — on Christmas Eve. If late in making your way home for the holidays, you could thank planes grounded by the government shutdown. Or if still shopping on your Christmas Eve, and no cab. Santa’s waiting …

What to do if trying to go home for the holidays and your flight is canceled from to be topical, the DC or NY or LA areas, or wherever, for snowy weather or other reasons that could broadly in some cases be called market, or Congressional, conditions? Forget Planes, Trains and Automobiles. (A last and late political shutdown euphemism, before I get shut down.) Simply hop onboard Santa’s sleigh, as he’s been seen taller than reindeer’s antlers above the brim already, because he and it have been spied in Wisconsin and moving southward in the form of a rooftop decorative scene. He’s actually up there, and I recall he was wearing a big floodlight on his stocking cap. Give him just three steps towards the chimney. Or maybe he’s a Grinch, I couldn’t tell as the near-Rudolph speed of the driving family member was 30 mph. And Santa and his scene are also adorning, in a painted-on way, every inch of a nearby garage door, up and down and across, the double-wide kind. The other direction? Another rooftop Santa with sleigh, led by a great big Frosty the Snowman!

— This is a small thing to top off a big appetizer I unveiled at Thanksgiving on these pages. I was in line at the grocery store buying some of those both jellied and berried cranberries to make the previous dish — I think that’s when I got them — and a few other things, and it was going quicker than usual.

The cashier smiled and quickly ended up telling me and the woman behind me about a trick of a dish that her sister had mastered. I wanted to use it and asked her to repeat the instructions as I walked to bag the groceries. She did, even though to listen I had to waylay a minute and felt I was keeping the next lady from her appointed holiday rounds.

First, say on Christmas Eve, slice up apples, maybe those remaining from dinner that night, and put the slim wedges in the freezer. I recall that she said green ones are the best, but not mandatory. The next morning, for a quick snack after gifts are opened, or to add “fresh” flavor to a main dish at a second holiday meal, maybe for a set of other guests, take the apples out of the freezer and sprinkle brown sugar (and maybe the regular kind too) and cinnamon on the top. This latest is my take on her take. If not added to the cranberry dish, by the time for dessert the temperature and therefore texture should be even better, like the sugarplums that danced in your little one’s heads. The main part is a healthier alternative to go with Christmas cookies. —

But hey, the Coneheads have it. One such orange traffic cylinder, borrowed for a good purpose from a nearby construction zone, was plopped atop the head of a snowman, Frosty style, but taking the place of his top hat. It melted before I could check if the Conehead had matching corncob pipe. No carrot nose, either, again market conditions. This Frosty facsimile was taller than your average human, meaning the effort to get the head up was superhuman. Half man but fully divine? Or half man and half machine, like in movies and song?

Meanwhile, the cones on top of shopping markers, delineating by the dozens the cart corrals over and above snow in store parking lots, could also be seen as serving a similar faux top hat motif. But hey, I know that parking lots make you see red, in more than one way, these days. And the streets that linked them sported piles of pushed-aside-of-a-car snow that looked like manger with sheep or more sleigh with reindeer scenes. But they were alas, piles of crusty snow, some pushed higher than others and nothing intentional. However, that white sparkling nose, to go with the rest of the body, might as well have been bright red, for sure not a brownnose. Or to further get a leg up, go with a sci-fi creature with more than one nose, of different colors. And maybe add to the motif, having five nostrils. Note the odd number.

Then multiply it by 2,000. That gets you to the 10,000 Lights, and days and nights, that represent the total number of travelers that the local area Chamber of Commerce, and Tourism Bureau, hope will still come through the introductory initial gates of the state on I-94, head north a mile and peruse the brilliantly beautiful lighted scene all through Lakefront Park. (The target figure, as that’s what these entities create, might be off by a zero.)

On the main drag, in one of the many antique shops, there is a brown (boo) Bigfoot creature that’s two feet high, shorter than any average Frosty or Abominable, gracing the front window for many a year, that has been relegated to the back part of the front to make plenty of room for the really cool Christmas decor. Every shop window, and some have more than one, are on a different sub-theme of the overall holiday theme. What did Zeppelin sing, “the snow drives back the foot that’s slow?”

Lastly, for now at least, in the below freezing temps that had come to mark the winter weather, basically until Christmas Day itself, when over here the degrees might hit 50 – unlike the number of PhDs that will now be generated in this country just south of Canada – a Starbucks told the tale. There was the usual long drive-through crawl at the local one, originally, before Target added another, but nothing to write home about, or curtail you from getting your cup of driveup joe. Still, on a cold day, a couple parked a full block away for the privilege of going inside. Not that noteworthy, except for the fact that she was wearing several inches of bare midriff, temps not frosty enough for frostbite, but … Why does this theme keep “cropping” up? And why do I continue to write about it? Because it’s there. Two days later, when an even thinner woman way at the back of my across-state bus strolled off during the 20-minute break, she wasn’t wearing much more, and no raspberry beret either, as we were headed east and a bit south towards the Blues Brothers area of Chicago, not west towards Minneapolis. Couldn’t she have taken the time to put on her coat? Gotta make time, fast, so I can get that extra cheeseburger so I will put on a few pounds, since I am named Applonia, as the holidays and their feasting were not fully here yet.

But hey, drove past the rooftop Santa-Grinch and the one on the garage door again, but again, had to make time so I got no further read on it. And back at the homefront? Christmas cookies galore, including some of rocking horses, which my naughty nephews turned into saddle-wearing by use of candy sparkles, as the holidays approach. And a single sprinkle for Rudolph, in the absence of a Candy-O nose. John Candy and Steve Martin? Get it?

But when the celebrations are here, enjoy in the best way you can.

Thanks for reading. Joe

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