I don’t always agree with Dear Prudie’s advice, but she got this Christmas conundrum exactly right:
Q. Sexy Santa-Suit Scandal: My boyfriend “Nick” and I have a holiday tradition where I dress up as Mrs. Claus and he dresses up as Santa and we role play. My costume is from an adult shop and is very suggestive while his is just a regular Santa suit. The thing is this year he has decided to volunteer for a well-known charity standing on the street dressed as Santa to collect donations from passersby, and he wants to use our role-play suit! I told him I want him to get a different suit for his charity work, and reserve the other one for its own special purpose, but he’s been dismissive of the idea, saying a proper Santa suit is expensive and that he doesn’t want to spend the money unnecessarily. I’m considering just going and buying him one myself, but I don’t want to seem pushy. Would I be over the line in insisting he doesn’t use his naughty suit to be nice for charity?
A: As I understand it, you don’t want him wearing his plain old Santa suit because when you see it, it says to you, “It’s sexy time!” However, that connection will not be made by any of the people dropping quarters into his can. This erotic clause you cite for wanting him to spend money for a new Mr. Claus suit is ridiculous. Be nice and drop your objection.
If Nick were entertaining kids on his lap, I’d recommend dry cleaning the suit in between uses. But since he’s playing Street Corner Santa, which is much cleaner duty, they can even work his new gig into their role play: Santa comes home from a hard day at the North Pole and Mrs. Claus welcomes him with milk and cookies…
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