While many people look forward to Christmas, I can be sure of but one thing. The so-called Christmas break is only a break if you are one of the people who would normally be sitting in a pupil desk listening to a teacher. For the rest of us, the Christmas break is less of a break. I’m not saying it isn’t fun, mind you. I love Christmas and everyone knows that you don’t have to take a break to have a good time.

In fact, most things that I know of that are enjoyable actually involve doing something. However, after a period of doing things, it is nice to stop for a while to take a break.

That having been said, I’m back to my point. I may need a break after Christmas break.

With more people at home more of the time, more messes are made. That, in turn, means that the bigger people spend more of their time cleaning up messes, or at least complaining about them while the other big people clean them up. That second option isn’t a good idea, if personal health and harmony are your goals. I like both, myself.

There are also more things to do during the holidays, more people visiting and, thus, more work. For instance, every holiday party requires a certain amount of preparation, including cleaning up beforehand to make the house presentable, cooking the necessary foods and threatening the children that they may not live much longer if they destroy the house before the people arrive. Of course, once the people arrive, all bets are off.

Then, after the party, there’s the dreaded clean up effort to get the house back to where it was before it was cleaned up for the party. After visiting with friends for a number of hours, the last thing I want to do at 10 p.m. is wash dishes and vacuum. Which takes me back to my personal health and harmony point.

The last get-together we had at the house resulted in something akin to an explosion in several rooms of the house, with toys scattered far and wide. It reminded me of a news picture I saw of a bomb attack on a Baghdad market. Instead of blood, merchandise and bodies, the carnage at my house was made up of baby dolls (some, incidentally, missing heads and limbs) electronic games, dress-up clothes, real clothes, shoes, crayons, and a smattering of every kind of toy imaginable.

Once I had braced myself, I walked through the house and noticed similar results in several rooms. It was a scene not unfamiliar to the war-hardened parent, but still it made me shudder.

Of course, I had the perfect carrot-and-stick routine ready. "When you’re done cleaning up your room, maybe we’ll find some presents."

If that doesn’t work, there are other methods that may be used to clean up their rooms, such as doing it yourself or renting a front- end loader to clear a path, but those are usually last resorts.

However, there is still hope, since one of my favorite holiday characters always appears magically this time of here. His name is ‘Reverse Santa’ and he dresses in pajamas and carries a trash bag. Never heard of him? Well, all you have to do to make him appear is believe—and stay up later than the children. Since a child can only play with a certain number of things and since rooms only have so many square feet of storage, it should go without saying that a packed room must have some things removed in order to put more things inside.

That logic, obviously, does not appeal to children. That’s why Reverse Santa only comes at night, creeping quietly and purposefully through the house. He comes to load up on toys and secrets them away out of sight, with a merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

I must say that never once has any child actually noticed any of the toys missing that Reverse Santa takes, so that should be a clue to the actual wealth of children. In fact, if one took into account the number of years of life children have lived and multiplied that by the dollar value of their possessions, and then did the same for the adults in the household, it would soon be clear who lives like Bill Gates and who lives like Tiny Tim.

Happy birthday, merry Christmas or even just oh happy day, there’s always a good reason to load kids up with presents. However, those who load them down seldom ever come back to help clean up when the 10,000-piece puzzle they purchased ends up jammed under the couch cushions and the complete set of snap-together blocks ends up being a torture device for bare feet on the way the bathroom at night.

While children sometimes envy toys with many pieces, especially small ones that get eaten by the vacuum or sometimes lodged in a tiny nostril, they are not so loved by parents. Obviously, many tiny pieces take longer to pick up than a few small ones. And, unless your child has a disproportionate proboscis, large things won’t get lodged in a nostril.

Which other toys aren’t popular with the grown ups? Very loud ones. Want to make an enemy? Buy your friend’s kid a bugle. I can remember threatening one of my friends by offering to buy his son a set of drums. Now I cow at the very thought of such a thing happening.

Sometimes good old Reverse Santa must creep in at other times of the year to steal the batteries from the children’s toys. That obnoxious toy with the loveable Hispanic girl on it that talks in English and Spanish and wouldn’t stop saying "Look Around, Look Around—Can you name the colors" somehow stopped working after a visit from my pajama- clad hero. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but the toy kept making noise even after the child had long abandoned it in some appropriate place, like the living room floor. If they only work when in use, it’s tolerable. But the ones that won’t stop die quick.

The same thing happened to the super volume keyboard that played odd electronic versions of favorites like "Old McDonald" for up to five minutes at a time without being touched.

While some may think it isn’t nice to steal a child’s batteries, I feel quite sure that you don’t have the aforementioned toys in your house. If it should come to pass, I’ll just pray that you have an ample supply of headache pills and an extra dollop of patience on your plate. You’ll need it until you can steal those batteries.