(OK so it's not really the original...but it's almost two decades older than this one).

The "Santa vs. Satan" discussion has been on one level amusing for me. Because it has brought back a memorable episode from high school, back when we were still working with the anagram.

It was high school speech class and our project was to come up with a series of skits for Christmas. It was a class project only, not school wide, and our little group immersed ourselves in the possibilities. It was also memorable in that it was the first and possibly last time I would ever play the "straight man".

The skits were simple, and exactly what you would expect from high school students. We had the normal pie in the face gag, with yours truly as the recipient. Unfortunately, our designated pie gatherer could not find a cream pie and substituted pumpkin. Being the good sport I obliged, and am eternally thankful to a high school jock friend, John Thomas, for providing me with the access to his locker to get his shampoo and wash that dratted pumpkin out of my hair. The event would be a memorable one, even meriting mention in one of the signatures in my high school yearbook.

But the piece de resistance was the Church Lady. Dana Carvey's memorable character was hot that year, and we decided we would do our own little spinoff. The Santa/Satan anagram provided us with a perfect medium to bring in one of the church lady's more famous sayings. I was Santa, and one of my classmates was the church lady.

Suffice it to say, Santa didn't stand up to the church lady's grilling on that one. Frankly, the classmate playing the church lady was just too durn cute (in this case, the church lady actually WAS a young lady...whaddya all think I am, a perv?) I broke character pretty badly, something I am really not prone to do, and in the annals of recorded history, there has probably not been a worse performance of the character of Santa Claus.

Or could it be....SATAN?!?!

Still, it WAS a lot of fun.