He's hanging right there in our entry hall—a novel Christmas ornament made of cloth with nylon whiskers, button eyes and a bright red, plastic nose. And he has a motion sensor powered by two AA batteries inside him to activate his recorded greeting.

He's really just a decoration, but Mom knows better.

She's convinced that somehow Dad has returned for the holidays through this cantankerous ol' Santa Claus wall hanging, because he just can't stand the fact that we're all having Christmas without him.

Dad was never much for the Christmas spirit. He sat stoically in his easy chair while the rest of us made festive fools of ourselves every year, only occasionally interjecting his own sentiments.

He kept Christmas in his own way. He wasn't exactly Ebeneezer Scrooge, but he was no Fezziwig, either (a little literary reference there to Dickens' A Christmas Carol ). And he did enjoy watching how much we all enjoyed the holiday experience.

We lost Dad a couple of months before Christmas of 1990. Needless to say, the holidays were not particularly happy that year.

But Mom tried her best. She shopped for gifts, decorated the house and made it feel like Christmas for all of her grownup children and not-so-grownup grandchildren.

And that was the year that Mom found these Santa Claus head wall hangings. She liked them so much that she bought one for herself and one for each of her kids.

This was no ordinary Santa head—he would talk to anyone who passed by.

"Ho, ho, ho ... Merry Christmas!" Santa would say. And the greeting would be followed by a rather snappy rendition of "Jingle Bells."

It was really pretty neat. Until, that is, it developed a mind of its own.

No, I haven't watched one too many episodes of the X Files . And I haven't been nipping a little of Aunt Debbie's eggnog recipe again.

But, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus ... and he's starting to go a little wacko hanging around on the wall of our entryway.

It all started with the one at Mom's house. He would bellow out a hearty "Ho, ho, ho" when no one was around. But when she'd walk past him? Silence.

"I know it's your father coming back to put in his two cents worth every Christmas," she'd say. "You know how bullheaded he could be around the holidays."

"Watch," she'd say, and the next thing we'd know she was doing jumping jacks in front of this Santa hanging on the wall. Nothing.

"See what I mean," she'd say. "When you want him to talk, he won't talk back."

Later in the evening, sometime during our holiday meal, suddenly we'd hear a "ho, ho, ho" coming from the other side of the room. Mom would just smile.

I didn't really buy the story until it happened to us last Christmas. We woke up to his little number in the middle of the night. And if you don't think that's a little unnerving, well, then, you've never watched Rod Serling's Twilight Zone .

"Are you awake?" I asked the oldest, poking my head in his door in the middle of the night.

"Huh? What? Am I what?" he stammered sleepily.

"Did you hear that?" I asked.

"Hear what?"

"Downstairs ... the 'ho, ho, ho' ... someone's down there!" I said with a sense of urgency in my voice.

"Yeah, it's just Santa Claus," he explained, like that in some way would reassure me that we were quite safe. "Let me go back to sleep!"

"Well, first of all, it's not Christmas so I'm pretty sure that it's not Santa Claus," I said in a surprisingly calm voice that was about to escalate very quickly. "And secondly ... GET YOUR BUTT OUT OF BED AND LET'S SEE WHAT IT IS."

He shot up like a dog with its tail on fire. Even he couldn't sleep through that.

We went downstairs to investigate, comforted by the knowledge that we had the element of surprise on our side, that I had watched almost every episode of the Kung Fu television series in the late '60s so I must have learned some martial arts tactics by osmosis, that the oldest had his 34-ounce Louisville Slugger on his shoulder and that no prowler in his right mind would still be within three miles of our house after hearing the me screeching upstairs!

After turning on every light along the way to the entryway, he discovered the culprit.

"It was just the dog," he explained, adding, "I'm taking the batteries out of that thing tomorrow!"

Well, he can, but there's no guarantee that it will help. Because we knew who it really was, right, Mom?

Merry Christmas to you, too, Dad.

Want to talk? Call me at 408.354.3110, ext. 31, or drop me a note at dsparrer@svcn.com.