Winter Light at Wild Turkey Road near Sebewaing, MI
Along about Exit 88 on I-94 Westbound, there is a plastic Santa Claus sitting on top of a steel fence post, part of an old woven-wire fence that separates the highway easement from a swampy horse pasture. He’s back in there a little ways, hidden in the brush and hard to see. It looks like someone was picking up cans, or generally policing the road bank, and found him there. What do you do with a good Santa Claus that you may have found while picking up cans on a summer day? Put him up on a post for others to enjoy, of course. My wife, Jamie, and I rarely pass that way without trying to spot Santa. He always makes our day. We wave and say “Hi Santa!” Be it midnight on a Tuesday in June, or four pm on a random February day.
We don’t decorate for holidays much at our house. We have dogs and a cat. They wreck stuff. We kind of feel that a lot of seasonal decorating is for retired people who have time and money. Our money is tight and if we are not working we need to sleep. Life has tired us out. We used to paint the town red every weekend, Hell, we’d give it two coats and stay up for 3 days to watch it dry.
Now we are exhausted, and things that mean more work just don’t make sense to us. We’ve seen lights, we know a lot about conifers, and wreaths of arborvitae. Holly grows in the swamp down past the old farm. Seen it all. Did it. Know where it is if we need it, don’t feel the need to drag it into the house so we can clean it all up again in three weeks.
But if you want to see a couple in their 50’s get excited, just watch along I-94 at Exit 88 when we come by. We’ll be craning our necks to see if we can spy Santa sitting on his perch, bringing joy to people like us, too tired to decorate at home, but not too jaded to appreciate the random gift of a stranger who thought Santa would look good on the fence. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if we start collecting Santas to stick on fence posts wherever we go. Decorating the house for Christmas is an overwhelming task. For some reason scattering Santas around the countryside doesn’t seem like too much work. Merry Christmas!
(Guest Blogged by Chris A. Ross, Attorney, and a BFF since 6th grade. Thanks, Tallz!)
Somewhere up near West Branch, Michigan, where the hills in the distance are sand dunes.
Seaver Creative 