Who is Mommy kissing

I love Christmas music. One of the things I miss most about being in NYC for the holidays is hearing it everywhere, political correctness be damned. Living in a hot climate, it never fully feels like Christmas to me until I get back to New York and have to wear a heavy coat and jostle tourists to see the tree at Rockefeller Center (and, yes, I always close my eyes right before it's about to come into view, and when I finally open them, I can't help the big smile that spreads across my face). While my seven hour layover last weekend at JFK on my way home from Paris was not ideal, it was in the airport that it finally hit me that it was Christmas time: carols blaring throughout the terminal, cheesy stuffed Santa displays, the light snow that was falling outside.

One of my favorite Christmas songs is "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." Some years ago I got into an argument with a friend about this song. I have always believed that in the song, "Santa Claus" is in fact the singer's father, dressed like Santa, who is kissing his mother. This makes the line, "Oh, what a laugh it would have been, if Daddy had only seen, Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night," sweet to me, as it is his father. My friend, however, was convinced that I was wrong, that Santa Claus in the song is the jolly guy in red himself, not "Daddy." This interpretation, to me, is a bit sick and wrong as it would mean that this happy tune of my childhood is fact one that depicts an adulterous Christmas Eve (unless we are to assume that "Mommy" is a single mom, but that's a whole other blog post).

(Click here to see full song lyrics for "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus")