BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Don't look now, but Christmas is right around the corner. According to local retail stores it has been around the corner since about July. And in today's different day and age, we need to take extra precautions to make sure the holiday runs smoothly.

When many of us were younger, Christmas was all about a gingerbread house and a magical snowman who came to life one day. But things have changed today.

Santa Claus' gingerbread house has been repossessed by his new personal trainer, and Frosty the Snowman is acknowledged as a pipe smoker who is also allegedly battling a substance abuse problem. The authorities have their dogs sniffing around Frosty's old silk hat, trying to determine exactly what kind of "magic" it contained.

That's a rough way to treat a legend like Santa Claus, but in recent years people have been asking him to clean up his act. According to telegraph.co.uk, a spokesman from the Ministry of Fun says that a secret summit of Santas has designed guidelines for Santa Claus' code of conduct.

James Lovell's agency fills about five hundred Santa positions every year. His guidelines report that Santa should have a bushy white beard of no more than six inches long, and a girth of at least 46 inches and no more than 48 inches. Lovell adds that Santa must not smell of drink or body odor and his Ho Ho Ho must resonate deeply.

The Ministry of Fun's standards seem a bit harsh. Some companies just might spot alcohol on the breath in the pre-employment interview. But other people have been unhappy with Santa Claus in recent years.

In the late 1990s, a lawyer from Cincinnati filed a lawsuit in US District Court claiming that establishing Christmas as a holiday violated the separation of church and state.

Yes, the Grinch Who Sued Christmas.

According to becketfund.org, Richard Ganulin, of Hebrew faith, claimed that he was damaged by the government-based holiday. If the damage was done to his holiday spirit, he should take the case to small claims court.

A federal judge threw out Ganulin's case a year later. But the way things are going today, there are more than a few people who might consider a class action lawsuit against Santa Claus.

Their reasons might be as follows:

• 1. He violates FAA regulations, and laws about breaking and entering.
• 2. Elves are small enough to slip through TSA screening lines.
• 3. He crosses state and country lines without a valid passport, and often violates international airspace.
• 4. This "sees you when you're sleeping, knows when you're awake" business violates laws prohibiting stalking.
• 5. He breaks state traffic and environmental laws by parking on rooftops, and does not scoop up after his reindeer.
• 6. His "naughty to nice" behavior color chart (1. Naughty: red, 2. Bratty: orange, 3. Impish: yellow, 4. Precocious: blue, 5. Nice: green) is merely subjective, and causes terror among children worldwide.
• 7. He seems to practice identity theft by having aliases of Kris Kringle and St. Nicholas, and appearing in Wal-Marts all over the world at the same time.

But even a 2000 or so-year old dog like Santa Claus can learn some new tricks. In Denmark a few years back, BBC News reported that the Danish air force had to pay about $5000 in compensation when two of their fighter jets caused one of Santa's reindeer to die of heart failure.

The animal, oddly named Rudolf, was grazing at the farm of part-time Santa Olavi Nikkanoff when the F-16 jets passed overhead, causing him to collapse and die.

This time Santa Claus was the one who wrote a letter. Nikkanoff asked for and received compensation for the reindeer and his veterinary expenses from the Air Force. The good news is that Nikkanoff planned to use the money to buy another reindeer.

People like that still respect everything that Santa Claus has done for Christmas. They probably still leave milk and cookies for him on Christmas Eve. But if you don't want to see a team of seven tiny lawyers leading you into a courtroom with a lawsuit for making him fat, the Center for Consumer Freedom strongly suggests that you leave a Christmas Cookie Liability and Indemnification Agreement on the cookie plate.

This agreement, which can be downloaded at www.consumerfreedom.com, contains various "clauses" which protect people from legal liability. They include:

• 1. Your failure to provide Santa with nutritional information and ingredients about the cookies;
• 2. Your failure to offer healthier cookie alternatives such as tofu bars;
• 3. Your failure to notify him that eating too many cookies can lead to even greater levels of obesity. This is known as the Sanity Clause.

Yes, we realize that Santa has been forgetting more and more stops as he gets older, like the poorer areas. And he leaves the sleigh's left blinker on in the fast lane a lot more often than he did when he was younger.

But with these few added precautions, people can still enjoy any kind of holiday celebration they choose to have. Just don't haul Santa Claus into criminal court if he happens to track any reindeer mess across your new carpet.