Sometimes the Czar leaves the Castle and returns home to Muscovy, which is actually a short palanquin ride away. As we welcomed dearest Царица, the boys, and little Sally (who is over her bout of colitis, having eating two pounds of ham fat on the Eve of Christmas; thanks to those who wrote in), the Czar looked across his snow-covered expanse of a front yard today and could not help but notice that our neighbor across the road, Mike Stramaledetto, still has his massive Christmas display up.

Mm-hmm. There’s the Griswoldian diplay of lights (red, white, and green, of course), the twelve-foot-high multi-thousand dollar Costco Santa inflatable balloon, replete with Macy’s walkers trying to keep her straight on the new route on 7th Ave, and the traditional Italian nativity with over-sized polyvinyl chloride Fontanini figures: Mary, Joseph, an angel, a choir boy, a Frosty, and a Nutcracker soldier, all positioned to venerate the baby Jesus in strict historical accuracy. The nativity scene is caged off, sorta, with Santa Stop Here!-type signage staked into the frozen grass.

“So, uh, Mike still has all that up, eh?” asked the Czar.

Царица nodded, and said, “You know he leaves it up until the Feast of…whatever.”

Right. The Feast of St. Collosità, when the people of the village of Vinosughero march a donkey through the town’s sole road, carrying a wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin on its back, to the top of the hill where they pound nails into the statue’s forehead in order to remember how the Saint stepped on a rake or something and saved the village from enslavement by the Moghuls, who never considered any invasion of Italy in the first place. The rest of the Feast is celebrated by a barfload of limoncello, men dancing together, and a phenomenal amount of spitting.

“So, uh…January 18th?”

“Yes,” she replied, “Unless you want to call the homeowners’ association again.”

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.