Sunday, 5 a.m., I’m awake and communing with my Christmas angel. I like to believe in her. She’s pretty, thin, tan and blonde. But she’s fallen down on the job this year.  I’ve decorated, baked and sprinted through the mall waving my Visa card, but I’m just not feeling the spirit. I should be, C.A. reminds me, we’re incredibly blessed and everybody’s healthy and happy.  

Maybe it’s our very empty nest.  Andrew married Jennifer in September and it was a fabulous, wonderful event and Jennifer and her family are amazing people and we love them and all that - but there is something about your last baby (yeah, I know he’s 30) getting married that truly convinces you that you’re, well, old.

And I miss George. When your dog dies, your nest is truly empty. It’s a clean nest — no more dog hair or drool spots on the hardwood. And no more “potty-walks” in the pouring rain or 110 degree heat.  So Jack says no more dogs, not even a cat.

Christmas angel just shrugs.

So I get up, get the paper, get coffee. I always try to avoid the news this early, so I go for the Parade Magazine. Ooh-ooh, look Christmas angel, here’s an inspirational article: “The Angels Among Us.” But wait a minute, it’s by Anne Rice.  Apparently the author, known for her vampire novels and raunchy hardcore S & M porn books, has found the Baby Jesus.  Well I just love that. Why is it that the most debauched of folks are always the ones most vociferously “saved”?

She writes: “One cannot help but be glad that once the present vampire craze is over, angels will still be busy guarding their earthly charges and answering prayers.”

This is ludicrous on so many levels. Where to begin? Uh, hello Anne, and who started this vampire craze? And . . . but Christmas Angel says: breathe, breathe, and switch to decaf.

I try to compose a little holiday poem. Rhyming stuff sometimes soothes me. But it comes out like this: ‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house . . . not a creature was stirring . . . especially the louse . . . who is cut off from all future affection because he won’t get me the one thing I really want for Christmas: a dog.

Christmas angel says, “Tsk, tsk, weak effort.”

She is not improving my mood.

So, when the love of my life enters the kitchen, I’m sitting at the table in my ratty blue robe, grumpy and frumpy. But he notices not. He’s fresh out of the bathroom and all perky and excited to share an article he just read.

No doubt it caught his attention as it featured a photo of a bikini-clad, fur-draped Ashley Dupree-call girl to Eliot Spitzer, now a former NY governor. She has been hired to write an advice column for the NY Post. Jack starts to quote her, but before he can get himself in any deeper I respond as mildly as possible that I’ll be damned if I’m going to take advice from an opportunistic little slut. (I took the liberty of cleaning this up somewhat.)

Forgive me if I’m feeling a little Palienated. (And, if you’re a Palinite, don’t go all Palinoid on me-I’m not going to say a word about her.  Too much has been written already and no matter how unflattering, it just seems to encourage her continual quest for overexposure.)

Now, back to Miss Dupree –oh, never mind, I guess she’s just one more media freak playing to the trailer park and chewing gum set.  It seems all manner of people, lacking any real talent, accomplishment, invention or intellectual purpose seem to revel in debasement as long as they make the news, preferably televised.

Hmmmm . . . well, what do you know, Christmas Angel is nodding. And so is Jack. Forget Christmas spirit, all I needed was a little kindred spirit.  

So, that’s it. My annual Christmas rant is over. I feel better, thanks for letting me share.

Thanks Christmas Angel.  Oh, and another thing:  give me peace.  But if I can’t have that, a puppy will do. Merry Christmas to all! And here’s to less clamor in the coming New Year.  Except mine . . . of course.

Wishing you all the best for the holidays.

Hollyn Chase has been a book clerk at the Phoenix-Nepenthe, an insurance adjuster, a social worker, owner of “The Mad Matter,” owner of Coordination Plus and sales rep for Adtel Communication, Valley Industrial, Kirkwood, and Medisys. For the last seven years she has worked as a high school substitute teacher, which allows her (finally) time to make art. She’s a proud mother of two, grandmother of two and married to her very lovely but equally quirky husband, Jack, for 36 years.