What’s Christmas?

Christmas IS wrapping tape stuck to the bottom of your sock and kisses that taste like ChapStick. Christmas is a bowl of chili, diced onion and cheddar cheese on the side. Christmas is candlelight through a glass of your father’s favorite scotch.

Christmas is four kinds of Sudafed on the bathroom counter . . . cough-cough-hack. Christmas is a germ fest. Christmas is a sneeze.

Christmas is melodies you can actually hum along to -- and when was the last time you could actually do that?

Christmas is deer tracks in the snow, ice on a cabin window, a good fat cigar.

Christmas is Dolly Parton in a sweater, Bing Crosby with a pipe, that Norelco shaver gliding down a snowy hill.

Christmas is subterfuge.

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Yep, just ask Santa. Christmas has always been filled with a certain level of deceit. For instance, their mother sent me and the two boys off the other day to pick out a Christmas tree, an unprecedented show of trust.

“If it’s not just right, you’re taking it back,” she warned.

See? Total trust.

Well, the boys and I arrive at the lot, and within 11 seconds, we spot a tree we really like.

“How ‘bout that one?” asks the boy.

“Load ‘er up,” I say.

“Sixty-five bucks,” growls the nice lady holding a wad of cash.

OK, it was actually only seven seconds. But don’t let the clothing fool you -- the sweat shirts from Marshalls, the decade-old jeans. We are three very wise men.

We instantly realize we cannot return home immediately, for their mother would never accept a tree we picked out in only seven seconds. So we drive around a while. We get the oil changed. We have a cheeseburger. Then we return home, the long way. Through New York and up the Eastern seaboard.

“We found one!” sings the little guy when we arrive.

“I was getting worried,” their mother says.

“You can’t rush these things,” I tell her.

“That tree is . . . perfect,” says their mother.

“See, boys, it pays to shop around,” I say.

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Christmas is an old sweater from way back in the closet.

Christmas is rushing out for just one more thing. Then another . . . and another.

Christmas is blankets on the couch and bowls of popcorn and “A Christmas Story” marathons on TBS. It’s watching football played in a blizzard; it’s candle wax dripping on the piano.

Christmas is the smell of something crisping in the oven, the sound of someone grunting as he belly-downs to refill the tree stand.

Christmas is Dad deciding to make beef stew at midnight: “Beef stew with olives? Eewwwwww.”

Christmas is resonant, it’s soulful, it’s righteous.

Christmas is elusive.

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At 5, the little guy is a shiny ornament, a twirling top. On his face you can see every Irving Berlin song ever written. Does he like Christmas? Do polar bears like cold beer?

So, to give his mother some space, the little guy and I take a drive to look for Christmas, in the neighborhood light displays that seem to get more insane every year.

“Look at that one, Daddy.”

“Wow.”

“Look, Rudolph’s on the roof!”

On this chilly night, we head over to Christmas Tree Lane, where the big deodars are draped in 10,000 lights. We wheel around a while, then find ourselves on the 134, but we don’t want to be on the 134, we want to be on the 210. So I take the San Rafael exit, which leads up into the hills above the Rose Bowl.

Now, if you’ve ever been in the hills above the Rose Bowl, you know that the area is like life itself -- a hundred curvy streets, most of them dead ends. We twist and turn, turn and twist. Magellan couldn’t find his way out of here with a helicopter.

“Where are we, Daddy?”

“Hey, look at that one,” I say, pointing to a porch light.

Deeper and deeper into the forest we go. I would turn back, but I am certain I cannot retrace our steps and we will end up spending the night in a rich guy’s driveway.

“Hey, there’s the freeway!” I finally say.

And the onramp is closed for cleaning.

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Christmas is office parties. It’s Alka-Seltzer for breakfast. It’s eggnog lattes ($6.95).

Christmas is midnight Mass, sidewalk Santas, Victoria’s Secret bras.

Christmas is French horns, German hymns and Russian vodka.

Christmas is a hundred hassles, a million blessings, a billion bills.

Christmas can be hard to find, easy to dismiss, impossible to ignore.

Christmas makes me crazy, broke, occasionally ill and, in the end, merry beyond all reason.

Do I like Christmas? Does Santa like lamb chops?

Merry Christmas.

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Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes .com.

For more columns, see latimes.com/erskine.