Santa is here to deliver coal to the entire news station. (Fox News)

For all their talk about how "confusing" it is for children to see gay characters on television (lest they grow up thinking that was normal), Fox & Friends had no qualms about bringing a very busy Santa Claus all the way down from the North Pole to explain why the liberal media is waging a war against Christmas.

Which just makes you wonder ... who is this shtick for? (Besides Brian Kilmeade, of course.)

Santa transcript:

You know, I never had a problem being Santa Claus, but there was a time a few years back when suddenly I started showing up at Christmas parties and was told that they were having holiday parties. So therefore, they didn’t need a Santa anymore. And it was about that time, that was the time when I think the Surgeon General said Santa should lay off the cookies and start picking up more carrots and broccoli. I heard Santa in Australia said ‘ha, ha, ha,’ so as not to offend certain gals and Santas in England couldn’t have children on their laps anymore.

Wait what? There is more than one Santa? Each country has a Santa? Forgetting everything else, destroying the childhood fantasy that Kris Kringle is a supernatural being who can visit all the good Christian children in the world in one night is actually MORE blasphemous than having an office "holiday party." Because children don't go to holiday parties. They do, however, listen to Santa Claus when he detonates his own myth on-air with Gretchen Carlson.

And you know what, why does Santa care about going to some drunk, depressing office party? It's a week before Christmas, and you are under-employed as it is. ObamaCare is probably the only kind of insurance you can get. So what are you doing on Fox News? Get to work, Santa!

According to a press release, the tree is a 30-foot blue donated by Arlene Blasen of Latham. The lights are LEDs which use less electricity than normal.

The Tree will be lit formally on December 7.

Christmas is done, and I can’t say I’m displeased or anything.

I mean, come on—a popper? Santa couldn’t do any better than a freakin’ popper?

You know what a popper is? It’s this bubble-thing made out of see-through plastic. Stick’s attached to it. Little blue plastic wheels on the bottom. Fisher-Price puts it out, I think. You push it along and little balls inside the dome start popping up and down and all around. Faster you go, faster them balls get moving.

I found it pretty fascinating at first. I was pushing it up and down the floor. Then I tried to run down the hall with it. Put some of my weight into that stick—but did it hold me up? Hell, no. I went down like a freakin’ sack. Bam! Christ, it hurt. I had boo-boos on my palms, my kneecaps, and I think I even hit my chin a little bit. Mommy came over and picked me up and she said, “Did that bad popper get you?”

I was already crying, and what Mommy said just made me cry louder, because it wasn’t really the freakin’ popper’s fault.

“Mommy’s gonna give Santa Claus a big timeout!” Mommy said.

“Waaaaaaaa!” I cried, because I didn’t want Santa taking the heat for this. I mean, Christ, yeah, it hurt and everything, but it wasn’t Santa’s fault. It was just one of those things that happens. I mean, I’ve been walking for, what, like three and a half weeks or something.

Mommy was bouncing me on her knee and she got a real nice rhythm going, and it was lulling me, and the Man came over and said, “Look he’s falling asleep and he has only opened one present come on let me take him come on baby let’s see what’s inside this one.” The Man was reaching out to me with some type of wrapped-box deal, but Mommy was cuddling me and it felt nice and I already had the freakin’ popper and maybe a popper isn’t the greatest freakin’ Christmas present in the whole entire universe but I guess I was kind of looking forward to playing with it again, once Mommy was done loving me up.

“Come on Carol put him down and let’s get to it,” the Man said. I think the Man is my father. I think I am supposed to call him Dad. He has no milk and he smells terrible—unlike Mommy, who smells like clouds, raindrops, candy, gum, rainbows, flowers and Marlboro Lights.

“All-wight, baby,” Mommy cooed. “Time for some more pwe-pwe.”

“Pwe-pwe” means presents, by the way. Mommy can be a nerd, but I try not to let it bother me. Anyways, she set me down and I grabbed the popper’s handle and pushed it down the hall. Them balls really got moving, especially when I ran. Ouch! Damn. Slipped again. I cried my loudest until Mommy came for me.

“Here we go again,” said the Man.

So it was a pretty tough Christmas, but at least I got a freakin’ popper out of it.

—Steven Mayne

It Takes a Pillage, Part 2

The scene: Early evening, a dimly lit back booth in a Washington, D.C., restaurant. Outside, rain-slicked streets and a palpable, electric air of menace ….

THE SENATOR: Now why can’t I pick up a fucking newspaper without seeing Obama and Edwards anointed the saviors of the Democratic Party? I spent eight goddamn years in the White House—those two pretty boys aren’t fit to hold my coat.

THE AIDE: Well, Senator, I think it’s safe to say most Americans aren’t ready for an African-American President ….

THE SENATOR: Oh, really? Tell me, have you ever seen an obscure little show called 24? It happens to feature an African-American President, and its viewership was up 16 percent last year—not to mention the DVD’s are selling out—it seems Americans are very fucking ready for an African-American President.

THE AIDE: Well, you know, it’s one thing on TV, it might be another in real—anyway, actually, I’m surprised you watch 24—

THE SENATOR: Dick sent me the DVD’s.

THE AIDE: Dick Morris? You’re kidding. You and he hate each other—he attacks you regularly in the Post.

THE SENATOR: Don’t be stupid, that’s just a cover—he’s still on the payroll. [Looking around] Now, who do you have to fuck around here to get a drink?

"It's no secret that the state legislature has been giving away the store getting no productivity in return and saddling our children with costly pension giveaways. It's time for Albany to stop playing Santa Claus with the city's money."

You can't lose, it seems, by bashing Albany.

-- Azi Paybarah

To deaden or lessen the pain, there is no want of preachers and editorialists to explain the real or true meaning of Christmas, though the bumpy history of the holiday suggests that its real meaning is whatever the deuce you want it to mean. Holidays do not have one meaning for all time. A few years ago Kwanzaa didn't exist, and now it does, with its own intricate semiotic overlays. Nov. 11 used to be Armistice Day, a bitter moment of reflection on the needlessly dead; now it's a pep rally for the next war.

Marley's ghost notwithstanding, looking into the past will not yield up any meaning of the Christmas holiday that most of us will recognize. The December date on the festive calendar two centuries ago was an occasion for public brawling by wandering crowds of inebriates.

Until Christmas was transformed in the 1830's and 40's, it was not unlike Mardi Gras. Men dressed as women and vice versa; off-key, discordant, squeaky, tub-thumping bands marched through the streets; liquored-up groups of revelers would force their way into the households of honest burghers to demand money, food and drink. When they managed to get what they came for, it wasn't Christmas alms or charity, but something close to extortion-the same begging by menace that New Yorkers, prior to Rudolph Giuliani's administration, used to have to put up with. These bands of not-so-merry makers would stand in front of homes and wassail those inside with such songs as this:

We've come here to claim our right …

And if you don't open your door

We will lay you flat upon the floor.

Twenty-first-century New Yorkers, putting cash into envelopes for doormen, cleaning staff, janitors, trash personnel, etc. under threat of rotten service next year, are observing the last of the not-so-nice Christmas customs of the 17th century.

(Incidentally, the carol quoted above is from The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America's Most Cherished Holiday by Stephen Nissenbaum, from which the other information about Christmas' history in this piece is drawn.)

In 1659, Massachusetts outlawed Christmas. A five-shilling fine was to be imposed on anybody "found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting or any other way." So how did this non-family-holiday become the epitome of domestic celebrations for American Christians and others taken in by the thought of everyone gathered round the bright, gleaming tree?

The bright, gleaming tree is itself supposed to have been an ancient bit of folkloric ritual brought over here from Germany, which is true as far as it goes. Apparently there was nothing ancient about it in Germany, where it was nearly unknown until the middle of the 18th century, when it may been popularized by the description of one in a Goethe novel. The tree doesn't seem to have arrived in the U.S. much before 1820, and the first reference to it in an English-speaking community dates from 1835, when one was set up in Cambridge, Mass., by a German professor at Harvard.

Santa Claus, evidently with a similar developmental history, arrives in roughly the same time period as the tree. He was imported from Holland in 1810 by John Pintard, the founder of the New-York Historical Society, with an eye toward suppressing lower-class misbehavior.

It appears from what Mr. Nissenbaum has found out that our contemporary child-centered Christmas cum tree and Claus was first popularized by that least of all Christian sects or churches, the Unitarians. To the extent that the modern child has become the tender, protected and special being that he/she is, the Unitarians must shoulder more than a little of the credit or blame. Turning Christmas into a children's holiday was one of the ways they achieved their ends.

And yet, although tree and Claus were important elements in shaping the commercial horror that is the modern American Christmas, it was the work of three writers who tamed the holiday and converted it into the form we recognize today. The first was Washington Irving, whose description of Squire Bracebridge in The Sketch Book making Christmas in the ancient (if largely fictitious) way seems to have had a great effect on the nascent middle-class American reader. Next came Clement Clarke Moore, a crusty, slave-owning reactionary who opposed abolitionism, and his relentlessly anapestic "A Visit from St. Nicholas"-or, as it is better known these days, "The Night Before Christmas." Finally, Charles Dickens did the rest when, in 1843, he gave us A Christmas Carol. For enduring impact, nothing compares with it, not even the Christian Bible (a document whose connection with the American way of Christmas demands a reach of the imagination): The sacred writing for this holiday was supplied by Dickens, who, given his antipathies for the uptrodden, might not welcome how his tale seems to have become propaganda for the rich. The message conveyed by the story in 2004-even though it doesn't reflect the author's intent-is that the best course is to stay cheerful and pray.

Look at the Cratchets. Without health insurance, their best-beloved child is a sickly cripple. Like millions of Americans in the same fix, the parents worry about their child, but the last thing on God's green earth to occur to them is that a society which lets little boys waste and die is one asking for a few adjustments. In the first half of the 19th century, the time of William Blake's "satanic mills," no money was available for public medicine. Extra capital in that epoch was being spent on new factories and technologies. As things worked out, those profits became seed corn for today's wealth and a society that does have enough money to attend to the medical needs of sickly youngsters-if the people have the means to pay.

Bob Cratchet is the precursor of the office-working armies to come. Like his white-collar successors, Bob is powerless against any petty cruelty or wage cut that his employer inflicts on him. He can't tell Scrooge to "Take this job and shove it," since he is living from paycheck to paycheck; he has no back-up resources, no power to defend himself. No law, no union, no professional association will intervene if Scrooge decides to can him. He and his little family are alone, utter isolates. Read in our time, A Christmas Carol counsels that Bob should work harder, grovel more enthusiastically, and throw himself ever more into the work of making a profit for an employer who is not going to share the extra money with the ever-pleasant, obsequious bookkeeper scratching away in the ledgers in the next room.

In the end, the long hours in the cold and the sweet optimism of the almost saintly naïf (or, if you will, the sucker) pay off: Scrooge has a nightmare in which it is revealed to his miserly self how cruelly he has treated poor Cratchet, whose faithful obedience could not even be found in an adoring dog. We know the rest of the story. It's New York's 100 Neediest Cases writ large. The Christmas goose and other goodies arrive at the Cratchet house, where Tiny Tim in his modest gratitude brings tears to our eyes.

Whatever the dark origins of Christmas in the Roman feast of Saturn, this is a tale of Christian virtues being rewarded. For the humble, the obedient, the happy striver, the dependent thinker, the cheerleader and the cheer follower, the possibility exists that those with power and money will have a bad dream, wake up and do right by those whom they employ.

It may have taken a couple of hundred years, but the starch has been purged from Christmas. No more bricks through the windows: The mobs of long ago have become the agitated shoppers of today, the office-party lechers, the Yuletide hysterics going further into debt to achieve a sparkly Christmas, for all is right and all is well, and the lesson of the day is trust to charity and the kindness of billionaires.

I'm also not talking about my wife. She's the one who buys most of the presents and–perhaps more to the point–wraps them. So there's no pulling the wool over her eyes. I'm not even talking about our 8-year-old, Gracie, who continues to cling tenaciously, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, to a belief in St. Nick.

No, I'm talking about me. Gracie tells me she knows that Santa exists. I tell her, "You better believe it." I tell her that in the good old days when I was a kid, I used to listen to this Christmas Eve radio program that offered progress reports on Santa and his reindeer as they made their way south from the North Pole.

"Santa's been spotted in Canada," the announcer would say. "Santa was last seen over the Atlantic Ocean. Santa's in France." It made perfect sense to me. Europe is six hours ahead of us. They ought to receive their gifts first.

If memory serves me correctly, the show even provided weather reports along Santa's route.

"I can't understand why that program isn't on anymore," I say, shaking my head, as if it's just one more sordid example–lest any were needed–of the media selling out, opting for fluff over hard news.

To Gracie and me, the biggest mystery isn't how Santa knows whether you've been naughty or nice or how he slips into apartments without chimneys, but why Rudolph doesn't get more press. It's always "On Comet, on Cupid; on Donner and Blitzen...."

My wife doesn't completely agree with my Santa-is-real attitude. "I'm a little concerned she's going to be so traumatized when she finds out otherwise that we've got to be prepared to deal with it well," she said. "If she says to us, 'You're Santa, aren't you?', I want to make sure I give her enough of a magical answer so she's not completely disappointed."

We always thought those most likely to spill the beans were the children in Gracie's class who celebrate Hanukkah. "In New York, if you're surrounded by a lot of Jewish kids during the holidays, they're already told it's a big hoax," my wife observed.

That turns out to be not entirely true. I visited my daughter's class and, much to my surprise, virtually all of them believed in Santa–even the Jewish kids. "When I was on a sleepover, I saw him," said Julia. "I saw him flying in the air."

"I saw his hat fall off once," volunteered another child.

"Maybe it was your dad," observed a skeptic.

"My dad isn't bald," countered the first kid.

Anthea didn't see him once, but twice–two years in a row. "At my cousin's house, we saw him in the backyard running around," she reported. "We were going to invite him in for cookies, but he was too fast."

Gracie hasn't seen him, but she has heard him. "About two Christmases ago," she told her classmates, "I heard one of the ornaments fall down and it actually broke. In the morning, it was broken."

We thought this might be the year she shelved the jolly old elf for good. Instead, she's embraced him more fervently than ever. Her belief was bolstered when I rented her the original Miracle on 34th Street –not as supporting evidence, but merely to keep her occupied while I napped. But she decided to treat the movie as a documentary rather than a work of fiction. She thinks everything in the film–like when Natalie Wood, who plays the little girl who believes in Kris Kringle, gets her dream house on Christmas Day–actually happened.

"Your parents couldn't hide all those presents," Gracie told me. "And they wouldn't leave you alone [on Christmas Eve] and go out shopping–and all those stores wouldn't be open." (F.Y.I.: My brother, who doesn't have kids, lives in my building; we hide the presents in his apartment.)

Last weekend, Gracie and a disbelieving friend had a conversation about Santa. Her friend denied Santa exists because nobody–my daughter's classmates excluded–has ever seen him.

"Do you believe in God?" Gracie asked.

The girl said she did.

"Well, you can't see God either," Gracie said.

Gracie wants Santa to throw her a bone. "After you read this," says a note she's left under our Christmas tree, "please write a note for all the other kids telling them you are real."

My pro-Santa attitude undoubtedly springs from my own family. We celebrated Christmas even though we were Jewish. My mother simply wasn't going to let her kids–or herself, for that matter–miss out on such a glorious holiday. We also believed in the Easter Bunny.

As a matter of fact, I don't think it was more than a decade ago that my mom stopped throwing Easter egg hunts–not for our kids, but for my brothers and me, and not because we were already in our 30's and 40's, but because it got to be a pain in the ass coordinating our schedules and getting us together to go searching simultaneously for our individual chocolate bunnies, eggs, jelly beans, etc.

I'm fully aware there are those who would argue that my mother, who also throws her dog rather lavish birthday parties, didn't do us any favors by treating us like children when we'd already reached an age when we're on cholesterol-lowering medication. And that I owe it to my own kids to tell them the truth.

But who's to say what the truth is? Perhaps there isn't any little old man whose belly shakes like a bowl full of jelly. But I can't help but believe there's something out there beyond the fringes of our understanding for whom, or which, Santa serves as a lovely metaphor. And it's protecting us–even in these perilous times–from cynicism, if nothing else, in the same way the atmosphere protects the Earth from the indifference of interstellar space.

Gracie seems already to understand this. One of the doubting kids in her class says he's going to stay up all night to see whether Santa really shows up. And there's another second grader who lost faith when her mother slipped up and boasted, "Didn't I get you a great TV?" when–oops!–it was supposed to have been from Santa. "They have a different spot for him in their heart," Gracie explained. "For me, he's right in the middle of my heart."

Armchair psychologists would undoubtedly contend that there's a simple explanation for my belief in Santa–that I don't want my kids to grow up. Once they cease to believe in the old man, an indelible milestone on the road to adolescence and inevitably adulthood will have been passed.

But I've vowed to keep believing in him after they're stopped. I mean, what's the alternative? I asked my jaded older daughter what she'd say if Santa turned out to be real.

"If people found out there was a Santa," she said, "they'd get very good security systems."

She's probably right. But with an attitude like that, can you blame me for wanting to perpetuate the myth as long as possible?

He's Alda't! Yes, firefighters are nice when you need to be swiftly plucked from a burning building, but ladies, think about it for a sec-what kind of fellow do you want to steer you through the emotional horror of war-torn New York? The image that immediately enters our mind is lanky-sensitive 1970's leading man Alan Alda. Tonight, Mr. Alda and equally cozy schoolteacher-turned-memoirist Frank McCourt don turtlenecks for a "parlor discussion" at the Y, where they'll trade favorite New York stories with playwright Nora Ephron, among others. Your host: Roger Rosenblatt, New York Times Magazine contributing editor -now that's a sweet gig! What it rather brazenly benefits: the Y. What it will cost ya: $50, but $200 more and you get to hobnob at a special pre-program cocktail reception with Mr. Rosenblatt and a lot of little plastic cups.

[92nd Street and Lexington Avenue, 8 p.m., 415-5500.]

We've heard from just about every demographic on how they're coping in these trying times, but what about drag queens? We found Joey Arias sleepily pouring himself a glass of water in his Spanish Art Deco one-bedroom apartment in the Village. "It's about being strong. It's about 'positive,'" he said. "Your mind and your life and just everything. You get to fall apart, but you have to go on, and it makes you even stronger- like you pull a leaf off a tree and make it grow another one stronger." Tonight, Mr. Arias styles his hair in a gigantic inflexible pompadour and opens as Joan Crawford in his answer to the Harry Potter franchise, Christmas with the Crawfords. "To me, it's like the new Christmas Carol for the 21st century, with Joan as the new Scrooge," he said. "I put my face on slowly and look at myself, because I have to soak Joan into my body, and then I'm ready to go on. That someone over five or six decades would survive that strong, like a young girl at the height of her career pulling it out like Madonna-I think it's pretty fantastic. Me being a gay man doing drag is not just impersonating women; it's portraying them in an hommage . It's not just glitter, big eyes and crazy cooking tips."

[Chelsea Playhouse, 125 West 22nd Street, 8 p.m., 439-5135.]

Thursday 22nd

Thanksgiving! It's here-and what a commotion ! Clanking measuring cups, whirring Cuisinart blades, clattering plates and that "kooky" aunt with big jewelry who keeps showing up each year, but no one is exactly sure how-or if-she's related … Best just to stay out of the way! Maybe fill a thermos with steaming hot cocoa ("with just a kiss of Amaretto") and trudge to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade . Maybe two kisses of Amaretto, to brace yourself for gigantic marauding balloons, gigantic pasty tourists and rampant commercialism .

[Parade starts at 77th Street and Central Park West, 9 a.m., and ends at Macy's, 34th Street and Sixth Avenue, at noon.]

Friday 23rd

Everyone knows about Balanchine's Nutcracker , with 40-foot Christmas tree, dramatic onstage snowstorm and an audience of Upper East Side moppets in velvet headbands wishing they could be Clara, but can Clara do this ? (See startling photo.) Tonight, the frighteningly flexible Jessica Howard -three-time U.S. Champion in rhythmic gymnastics (a sport popular in Bulgaria )-goes head-to-head with The Nutcracker as she appears in Twin Kingdoms , the story of Yana, a young woman kidnapped by a dragon who longs for a new life free of hostility and pretense. (Don't we all, sister, don't we all.) We called Ms. Howard in Bulgaria , where she was visiting her coach, but whoever answered there spoke only Bulgarian. That's life .

[ The Nutcracker , New York State Theater, Lincoln Center Plaza, Broadway at 63rd Street, 8 p.m., 870-5570; Twin Kingdoms , City Center, 155 West 55th Street, 8 p.m., 581-1212.]

Saturday 24th

Salami salaam: Thinking-woman's sex object and chef Mario Batali pries himself from his restaurants Babbo, Lupa and Esca and performs a $75 cooking demonstration at Italian Wine Merchants, where a resident sommelier will helpfully suggest wines to go alongside …. A source close to Mr. Batali told us he'd be making goat-cheese tortellini, orecchiette with broccoli rabe and fresh sausage, and also doing a sausage demonstration: "Nothing bad, just lots of fat." Bring it on, baby ….

[108 East 16th Street, 1 p.m., 473-2323.]

Sunday 25th

Santa Claus, gay? Jeffrey Solomon's one-man show, Santa Claus Is Coming Out , previews tonight and opens tomorrow. "It's a mockumentary about the secret life of Santa Claus, told in the form of a theatrical documentary, like Anna Deavere Smith," said Mr. Solomon. He plays a boy named Gary who requests a doll from Santa, who has homophobic elves, a Jewish agent and a "beard" (Mrs. Claus). Why out Santa? "A lot of reasons," said the playwright. "I guess he's so wholesome, he's the most beloved children's character, and what if he were gay-would you let your children sit on his lap? It kind of goes to the root of what we consider acceptable or not acceptable for our children. It is not a children's play, I guess. If you look at South Park , you can see my play." If the apocalypse comes, one-man shows and cockroaches will be the only two things to survive ….

[24 Bond Street, 8 p.m., 206-1515.]

Monday 26th

What is it with the mockumentaries? Get out your wry black-rimmed glasses for the premiere of The Independent , a "look back" at the "career" of a prolific independent filmmaker played by Jerry Stiller -cameo by his increasingly annoying son Ben almost inevitable ….

[Screening, CC Village East Cinema, 189 Second Avenue, 7:30 p.m., party to follow, Tan Da, 331 Park Avenue South, by invitation only, 646-792-2306]

Tuesday 27th

I see England, I see Kim France …. The city springs back to life ( boing )! Sort of. Since the economy has gone to seed, Lucky editor Kim France's exhortations to shop -which used to make one feel a certain queasiness and self-loathing-have now made her a regular Uncle Sam …. Tonight, Ms. France (who's become quite the gal-about-town since Glamour 's Bonnie Fuller was-there'snosugarcoatingit- askedto leave ) co-hosts a party with New Age designer Donna Karan to "kick off" the "Miracle on Madison Avenue" charity shopping event, which is coming on Dec. 2. What it benefits: the Children's Aid Society. "It's going to be socialites and celebrities!" promised a publicist, in what was apparently intended as a plug. "Muffie Potter Aston, Courtney Arnot, Helen Schifter, Olivia Chantecaille … we're approaching Kyra Sedgwick, Liev Schreiber. Just real New York type of people." Later, another Condé Nast publication, Bon Appétit -the poor relative of Gourmet since the latter was gussied up by bohemian-glam dirty-book writer Ruth Reichl -hosts a "Wine and Spirits" event, with tastings from the menus of Marcus Samuelsson (Aquavit), Charlie Palmer (Aureole) and Daniel Boulud (Daniel). Their publicist told us that they're auctioning off plates designed by gamy-sexy actor Michael Douglas, outgoing Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (where does he find the time?) and wedding-dress designer Vera Wang. What it benefits: the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

[ Lucky party, 655 Madison Avenue, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 286-7397; Bon Appétit benefit, New York Marriott Marquis, 1535 Broadway, 7 p.m., 888-34-FOCUS.]

More proof that "cocooning" is way out of control: Designer and "antiquaire" (whatever that is) Rose Tarlow celebrates her new photo book, The Private House , which appears to be about toilets, with Michael and Jane Eisner, David Geffen, Terry Semel, Bill Blass and others who have private houses way bigger than yours. But just think of the heating bills!

[Four Seasons Grill Room, 99 East 52nd Street, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 822-8170.]

Wednesday 28th

More athletic ladies! You can have your Nutcracker , but to really get into the spirit, you have to see tonight's opening gala performance of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, with your honey-voiced host, James Earl Jones . So get out those sparkly chiffon numbers and let it fly ….

[City Center, 131 West 55th Street, 7 p.m., dinner and dancing to follow, Imperial Ballroom of the Sheraton New York, 811 Seventh Avenue, 767-0590.]

So while I would like to be shocked by Vivian Miranda, a 39-year-old mother who did resort to home-remedy exorcism (one in which unfortunately the possessor and the possessee both expired), I know how easy it is for the Devil to drive you crazy. This mother of three daughters put a plastic covering on the head of her 17-year-old while her 20-year-old held her struggling, dying sister down. They were just trying to get rid of her demons. Instead, they succeeded in getting rid of her and found themselves in the county jail facing murder charges. The demon, if there was one, got the last laugh.

It may turn out that Vivian Miranda was schizophrenic. This hearing of voices and literal belief in demons is close enough to madness, and this woman may qualify as a candidate for Haldol, not jail, but nevertheless she is also a product of a religious culture in which anger and love, good and bad, are split into separate symbols, and "If the arm offends, you cut it off" is not such an alien idea.

I understand that unless you are on medically prescribed drugs and have only a week to live, you must not say that someone else's faith in crystals is tommyrot, and I know that if the man next to you at dinner is wearing a copper bracelet, you keep your thoughts about tennis elbow to yourself. I know that if I went to a distant isle in the Pacific Ocean and the beautiful fisherman standing near his boat refused to let me take his picture in fear the camera would steal his soul, it would be uncouth to tell him he's a dope. I know that it's not nice to make fun of other people's dealings with death and fate and the ever-expanding or ever-contracting infinity of the universe, etc. But despite the currently avowed importance of tolerating and respecting every Tom, Joe and Harry's relationship with the Great Hereafter, some religious beliefs are just primitive hooey. What happened in Sayville, L.I., tells us that maybe we should stop being so polite. There are outside limits to religious insanity. There is a point where this devil talk is a little like shouting fire in a crowded theater.

There are probably still tribes, hidden in distant, dusty places around the globe, whose members, wearing feathers and fur, eat parts of animals in the expectation that the qualities of the totem-fleet of foot, sharp of tooth, fatally poison of tongue-will be transferred to the dinner guests by virtue of incorporation: You are what you eat … Nice idea, but it doesn't work. There are people who believe you can offend someone else's ancestors and end up with boils. There are people who believe that a little chicken blood sprinkled in the right place will bring your enemy to his knees. If that were true, you wouldn't be able to find a juicy chicken in Citarella, and our jails would be overflowing with the beeper-wearing traders of chicken blood who had tried to sell their vials within 100 feet of a public school.

My mother believed that if you opened your umbrella indoors, misfortune would fall on you. My mother believed the evil eye hovered over her canasta table. So it didn't surprise me when a beloved friend in Los Angeles began talking about her brilliant, much-in-demand psychic and the thousand-year-old spirit she summoned from the past who entered the consultation room, bringing a chill, and left by way of the radiator, after freeing her at long last of her burdensome ties to a cranky mother. I managed to keep my mouth shut-mostly. Experts in the practice of the magic arts can make a decent living based on the things the rest of us can't see. What a wonder it is, this lifting of tables, this tapping on walls, this delivery of messages we so desperately wish to receive.

Superstition is a belief in magic, a belief in forces outside of reason that can be controlled or propitiated by the right numbers, the right sacrifice, the mumble of ritual dice rolled on the eternal table. Of course, it's different from religion, but it sure is a kissing cousin. Most religions are dressed in superstitious garb, and most superstitions are based on some kind of religious view of the world. When wafers are transformed into the blood of the Saviour; when goats are scaped; when Elijah, like Santa Claus, makes his wondrous rounds each Passover; then magic, primitive thinking, rises. Religion that brings us peace of mind and moral aspirations, that guides us through our worldly maze and offers us hope for eternal life, is not the same, cannot be reduced to wearing a lucky dress to a party or trying to search the future with the help of tarot cards. But if the Devil, that fallen angel, is taken as a literal fact, then black magic is free to do its dirty tricks.

Fate works with an uneven and random hand. The black holes out there are impenetrable. We are lonely and weak in a world where our cells are splashing downward like raindrops and entropy is the name of the game. We can't be blamed for looking for ways to control, to explain, to play up our worth, to turn on the light in our darkness. We are aggressive, destructive beasts. We cast out our nasty thoughts and attribute them to devils or demons or their legions. We spin stories when we should be searching for root causes, for reasonable explanations. The devil ate our homework. "What the devil has gotten into you?"

Hollywood sends movies out to the malls like Denzel Washington's Fallen , like Carrie . Pleasurable chills shoot down the spine while we indulge our desire to claim human innocence in the face of the Devil's power. Poor Vivian Miranda was given what she believed to be a holy language to express her rage at her daughter. It was a false language that resulted in the death of her child, the destruction of her family and the betrayal of her own humanity. The televangelists, the spiritualists, the faith healers, cloud the skies with invisible forces of good and evil and prey on our inborn sense of transgression, our need for forgiveness, for safety. Perhaps we cannot live without the Devil to take the blame for our worst impulses, but it seems to me that we don't have to be cowed by the cultural relativists. Some ideas like exorcism are really stupid and can lead to disaster. Call a social worker, call a psychotherapist, dial the police; don't go after the demon in your child with a plastic bag or a hot poker. How about that for a message inside a fortune cookie?

"As I see it, everyone is sick of minimalism and wearing black"-said she who wore head-to-toe black Helmut Lang pants and sweater and five-inch python Christian Louboutin boots dyed purple. "Everyone wants the obvious, Richie Rich trinkets: a big gold Tank Française Cartier watch. A cranberry-colored big BMW. Jewelry, obviously-duh, hello! Diamond drop earrings or a diamond choker from Fred Leighton. Even if last year you hated fur, this year you want a fur coat from Narciso Rodriguez at Saks. Really lightweight. So lightweight it doesn't look like fur, but like velvet. And it's about gadgets," Ms. Betts continued. "The new Startac cellular phone. The new Apple thin, thin desktop computer. All the things the crowd at Balthazar has, or will have."

Ms. Betts even added a couple of personal wishes. For instance, a new New York apartment "with Sub-Zero everything," decorated by Sharon Simonaire. According to another source, it is Ms. Simonaire whom Richard Gere has hired to do his new Greenwich Village town house.

Isn't it rich? Economists have forecast that holiday shoppers in the United States, inspired by the glad tidings of the current economy, will help boost retail sales anywhere from 3 to 5 percent this year over last year. ABC World News reported on Nov. 30 that retail sales over the Thanksgiving holiday were already up 2.2 percent. On the other hand, reports in The New York Times and Women's Wear Daily for the same weekend said retailers' cash registers hadn't reached "Jingle Bells" pitch yet; most shoppers will wait until a few days before Christmas to spend. A poll by an economic research organization called the Conference Board said the average American will drop $465 this season on Christmas presents. People polled in New England will be the nation's biggest spenders, at about $593 per shopper. Meanwhile, in upper-income Manhattan, that's just about what our town's most anxious movers and shakers might tip the reservations person at Balthazar, or any watering hole of their choice.

In New York, Christmastime has landed. From Genre magazine ("Gucci, Gucci, Gucci," a "yearlong subscription to Wallpaper magazine") to Martha Stewart Living ("candle sets," "themed stockings"); from Paper magazine ("camouflage camera from Union," "boots by Todd Oldham," "red velvet hot pants by Bongo") to Town & Country ("Tiffany & Company's moonstone tiara," "Harry Winston's 'Sparkle Plenty' earrings"), nary a chronicle or magazine cannot be gleaned for holiday gift suggestions this month.

Asked what he thinks fashion people want most for Christmas, Simon Doonan, the executive vice president of creative services at Barneys New York, produced a list more Nobu than Ms. Betts' Balthazar, more green tea than boom-boom beef. Of course, everything on his most wanted list was available at Barneys: custom-made shirts, assorted fragrances, an Hermès bicycle, a tiara made of healing crystals and, said Mr. Doonan, "You're insane not to buy something by Yohji [Yamamoto] if you're a woman. His collection is amazing." Barneys has early delivery on Yamamoto.

For the uninitiated: The stylish, British-born Mr. Doonan has been with Barneys since 1986. He is in charge of the emporium's design and display, including its always merry windows and its elaborate and amusing Christmas installations. In the retail world, no one is quite as involved in Christmas as Mr. Doonan.

When we met on Nov. 24 at Fred's, the store's restaurant, this year's Christmas windows were just completed, and Mr. Doonan and his team were conceiving the holiday windows for 1998. "By July, we'll have sketches of the windows. As nightmarish as it sounds, it's a year-round activity. It does mean," confided Mr. Doonan, leaning forward in his crisp brown Prada suit, "my personal interest in Christmas is vastly diminished. When the actual event rolls around, I just lie in bed in the fetal position and wait until it is over."

A jazzy "Silent Night" was heard from the store's stereo, the song distinguished from more sophisticated, seasonless melodies. "We have a system," Mr. Doonan explained. "The Christmas music increases the closer we come to Dec. 25. It's 20 percent now. After Thanksgiving, it goes up to 60 percent. Once December really kicks in, everything is Christmas music, but we try to have groovy things." He smiled. "This is the Modern Jazz Quartet."

As one has come to expect, Barneys' holiday windows are as irreverent this year as ever. The theme is a global tour of fashion and popular culture. The English window, for instance, includes Queen Elizabeth as a bearskin-style fur rug that is labeled "Fake."

So what's wrong with a nice Santa Claus?

"I'm always berated by people who don't get our windows," Mr. Doonan said. In particular, he remembered when small Christmas trees decorated with condoms in gold foil were featured several years ago. "We got grief from people who said the Christmas tree was a religious symbol. In fact, it isn't. I thought it was a pagan symbol, and it really isn't even that. Santa Claus and Christmas trees are inventions of retailers. I think to really show what Christmas means in a religious sense would be bad taste in a store window."

Indeed, The Battle for Christmas , by Stephen Nissenbaum, a fascinating cultural history of America's favorite holiday that was recently published in paperback by Vintage, describes how John Pintard, one of the founding members of the New-York Historical Society, concocted Christmas sentimentality in 1810 to control noisy immigrants who reveled too loudly at the holiday. The idea was to focus their energies during Christmas week on their home lives, not on their revelries in the streets. Later on, to attract shoppers at the turn of the century, department stores filled their windows with decorated evergreens, probably an idea brought from Germany. "There never was a time when Christmas existed as unsullied domestic idyll, immune to the taint of commercialism," writes Mr. Nissenbaum.

Mr. Doonan, who is writing a book titled Confessions of a Window Dresser that Calloway Publishing is expected to publish in the fall of 1999, was headed downtown after our chat to decorate his apartment for Christmas. "It consists of placing two Christmas balls bought at the Liberace Museum gift shop on either side of the mantel; that's it. Even though I have a high-level job in retail," he joked, "I'm clinging onto my soul with Lee Press-On nails."