"The world was a better place without topiary reindeer," I say.

She begins to cry.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you," I say, and I put my arm around her and bite my tongue.

As the years have rolled by, my home has collected Christmas decorations like a ship collects barnacles, or glam-metal bands collect STDs. This year, I have four nativity sets, three Advent calendars, a pair of mechanized topiary reindeer and a life-sized Grinch that flips off passersby. I am lousy with holiday decorations, and lice.

As you can imagine, not all of this is my choosing. It's woman-related.

My MOTHER has foisted this stuff on me. "Oh, I found you an original Fontanini nativity scene!" she'll announce, and a day later I have less counter space. She is so sweet about it that I have a hard time saying "no."

I also have two Christmas trees. One real, and one fake. "You just CAN'T have an artificial tree," she says. "That is against the spirit of Jesus."

"But isn't the Christmas tree a pagan symbol anyway?" I ask.

She slaps me. So I go out and drop 70 bucks on a Scotch pine.

"Good. This will be your formal tree," she says, "and we'll use the artificial one as your informal tree."

"There's a difference?" I say. She slaps me.

One night into my two-tree existence, I learn that cats and Christmas trees don't mix. I awake in the middle of the night to a horrible retching sound. It sounds like the devil expelling a gazelle. I run into the living room just in time to witness the unspeakable horror – my black cat, perched on the nativity scene table, vomiting on the baby Jesus.

"No!" I yell.

Maintaining eye contact with me for extra creepiness, "Blackie" lets the cud pass from his cat lips just as my voice fades. Then there is poor Jesus, in his humble manger crib, surrounded by pine needles and ectoplasm.

I survey the room. The tree is bare, and everywhere I look there are piles of pine needles anchoring saliva puddles.

Three things you can't keep down: Rick Astley and pine needles in a cat's stomach.

The third?

Mother's kindness.

Hear Gordon on "The Ticket" KTCK-AM (1310) weekdays from 5:30 to 10 a.m. Catch him on TV on The Gordon Keith Show, Thursday nights at 12:35 a.m. on Channel 8. E-mail him at gordon@gordonkeith.com.

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