Count Your Gifts and Roll Out the Barrel

Germany has its Oktoberfest, and here we have Decemberfest, with bright lights and strange customs, where people in hard holiday shoes dance blithely to the polkas playing only in their little heads.

“Come on, Dad, let’s dance,” someone says.

“But there’s no music,” I say.

“Who cares?” she says.

“I do,” I say.

So she takes my hand and teaches me to dance.

Somehow, through some government grant, we assembled enough money to give the little red-haired girl dance lessons. Through this, she learned to waltz. Now I’m learning to waltz. To the polka playing in her little head.

“Come on, Dad,” she orders.

It’s like dancing with a spider, eight legs all kicking at once. I enjoy it immensely. As a father, you come to appreciate a little pain.

“Ooooo,” I say.

“What, Daddy?”

“You kicked my knee,” I say.

“I know,” she says.

Decemberfest can be like this. People are always pulling you onto a dance floor or grabbing for your wallet.

It’s like being pawed at by linebackers, except linebackers generally have better manners and a more highly developed sense of remorse.

“Ouch,” I say.

“Sorry,” says the little girl.

“You stepped on my ankle,” I say.

“I know,” she says, and spins me into the Christmas tree.

It is like spending Christmas with Currier & Ives. Currier, the eight-legged one, likes to dance to her internal polkas.

Ives, the boy, scans the TV listings for rock ‘n’ roll Christmas pageants hosted by teen princesses wearing leather pants.

“And now here’s Social Distortion singing . . . ‘The Christmas Song,’ ” a teen princess purrs.

If that doesn’t bring home the holidays, nothing will.

Like most good Americans, the kids are careful to keep score at Christmas. They divide their presents into little piles near the tree, then count them and weigh them and shake them to their ears.

“I’ve got 10,” the boy says.

“I’ve got 11,” says the little girl.

And if that doesn’t bring home the holidays, nothing will.

Me, I’ve simplified Christmas. This year, I’m giving mostly meat. Mail-order meat. To friends. To loved ones. “Say it with meat,” that’s my Christmas motto.

Many of our friends and relatives are back in the Midwest, where the winter has been especially cruel.

The Bears are losing. The Cubs unloaded Mark Grace. The Bulls are just the Bulls again, sloppy as a Chicago hot dog.

Last week, Chicago papers warned readers that big sheets of ice were falling from the skyscrapers downtown.

In one blizzard, it took a suburban mother four hours to drive her carpool four miles. Even in the Midwest, these are considered extreme conditions.

In sympathy, I’m sending them pork loins.

“Look, he sent us meat,” they’ll say joyously Christmas morning when they unwrap my gift.

“I’ve got chops!” someone will exclaim.

“Wow, rib eyes!” someone else will say.

“Eighteen ounces,” Uncle Ed will say. “Just my size.”

Meanwhile, back in California, the sky is blue as your mother’s eye shadow. In the evening, we throw pillows and blankets in the open convertible, then go look at Christmas lights.

“It’s cold,” the kids say.

“Yeah, turn on the heater,” someone says.

“Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“On Christmas, can we have a family game of poker?” the little girl asks.

“Of course,” her mother says.

Back home, we make a fire and wait for Christmas. The more they want Christmas, the slower it comes.

At about 8:15, the clock actually stops. For half an hour, time stands still. Weird stuff like this always happens at Decemberfest.

“I can’t wait for Christmas,” the little girl says.

“It’ll be here soon,” I say.

“I’ve got her in a headlock,” the boy yells, jumping on his older sister.

“No roughhousing,” I say.

“Look, I’ve got her in a headlock!”

Over on the couch, my wife is celebrating Decemberfest by passing softly into a coma, a brief respite from the frenzy that is a mother’s Christmas.

I try to give her a back rub and she swats at me, thinking I’m one of her children frisking her for cash.

This just encourages me, of course. I warm my hands on her lower back, then frisk her for money anyway.

“It’s only Christmas,” I whisper to her. “It’s only the holidays.”

She sighs. A big sigh.

St. Paul once said that a sigh is just a prayer too deep for words. If so, my wife prays often during Decemberfest, several times an hour, in fact.

Somewhere, God is standing by his prayer machine, which is spewing out prayers like bad faxes.

He smacks it on the side and out pop two more prayers.

“Please, God, give me the strength to survive Christmas,” the sigh/prayer says. “Please.”

And in the background, God can probably hear the polka music playing.

Happy Decemberfest.

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Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.