Claus for divorce? How Santa’s wife saved Christmas (and her marriage)

This year’s Christmas card does a role reversal on the Clement Clarke Moore classic.

The Wife Before Christmas

 By Jay Heinrichs

’Twas the week before Christmas, and old Mrs. Claus

Stepped away from the kitchen and took a short pause.

She sat by the fire with a small bone to pick:

Lately things weren’t the same between her and her Nick.

Oh but don’t get her wrong; there was no overt strife.

She knew that no husband’s a saint to his wife.

But Nick’s ample belly had lately grown lumpy.

His year-round good nature could sometimes turn grumpy.

He gagged on the sugarless cookies she’d bake

And groaned when she switched his coat’s real fur with fake…

She observed her own belly, which stretched her red felt,

Admitting that she too was no longer svelte.

It’s not that she rued her long marriage to Nick.

What she-elf could ask for a jollier pick?

Still, these days their relations were mere Hershey’s kisses.

She wished he would no longer call her “The Missus.”

Mrs. Claus: that cognomen meant mere borrowed fame…

She’d been called that so long, she’d forgotten her name!

And besides, though she lacked the sheer nerve to have said it,

She would rather like getting some more of the credit:

Who saved that one Christmas—and this was essential—

By telling her husband of Rudolph’s potential?

The truth was, he needed her aid more than ever.

The years had not made the elf any more clever.

She was starting to doubt that his wits passed inspection—

What saint in his right mind forgets his direction?

Take last Christmas Eve, when the addled old master

Drove the sled the wrong way, a near-run disaster.

Only Donder and Blitzen, with Germanic force

Pulled the sled over Iceland and set it on course.

Wait: She had an idea! She would save the old coot!

Just this once, she would take on his magical route.

She spent all that week learning each little annual

Chore (all explained in the Sled Owner’s Manual).

Then she spiked Santa’s eggnog with rum Mission Night:

Ere long, he was out like a faulty tree light.

Mrs. Claus felt some nerves when she grasped the sled’s reins…

But Dasher et alia took added pains

To launch extra gently, and had the good sense

To veer at the clouds that forewarned turbulence.

Setting down on each rooftop, she hoisted her wares…

And avoided the chimney, preferring the stairs.

Come Christmas morning, the children awoke

To find lovely presents, not one of them broke.

And handwritten cards in Ms. C’s own light scrawl

Declared every child the most special of all.

Elves’ reports soon flowed in from the region HQs:

This mission was getting the highest reviews!

Still, she worried her Nick would be more than just miffed—

He might find her adventure the worst kind of gift.

She brought him strong coffee to ease his poor head

And told him the truth… then he smiled and said,

“I must say I’m surprised; but you made the right call.”

(It turns out that old Nick was a saint after all!)

“Next Christmas,” he said, with the tiniest pause,

“We’ll do this together, S.C. and Ms. Claus!”

She leaned toward her husband and cooed in his ear:

“Call me Alice,” she said. “And I get to steer.”

© Jay Heinrichs