42-12-17 High Pressure Christmas Card Seller

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

• Mis' Harris has left a Christmas card catalog with Sade. Sade must decide if she'll be bull-dozed into buying Christmas cards from this catalog for 1942. Vic is impressed by Ma Harris' tenacity and cunning, but he wonders why Sade feels obligated.  Sade doesn't want to order the same old cards again.  Sade thinks Mis' Harris is being persistent and stubborn because she didn't get Sade's card order for 1941.
• Rush: "Exactly like in the other catalogues, only with different numbers. Here's that same old Santy Claus with the black mustache and big cigar… One, two, buckle your shoe, This is Christmas, 1942. That's no lie; that's no bluff;
   the Yuletide season is red-hot stuff." 
• Vic: "Those beautiful words bring a lump to my throat an' my eyes are suspiciously misty."
• Rush: (chuckles) "Uh-huh.  Here's another old favorite. Shows a reindeer wearing a derby hat an' spats an' carryin' a cane: "Give me something decent this Christmas, you stupid ox.  Spend a little money on what you put in my sox." 
• Rush: (reads) "Give me a couple kisses, sweetheart of mine. Whenever Christmas rolls around, for you and I start to pine.  I know you're not good-lookin',  I know you're far from smart, Your feet are large, Your face is flat, an'…" 
• Rush: Ah… (reads) "You're a homely woman, Marguerite. You got no sense an' big feet.  I never liked your brother Joe –  He always wants to borrow dough.  Your Uncle Harry makes me sick.  Likewise your Cousin Sam an' boyfriend …"
• Sade wants Vic to come up with a solution.  She doesn't like being bullied.  Vic offers no suggestions.  
• She decides she'll return the book to Mis' Harris on her way to meet Ruthie Stembottom – she'll have no time to chat.  Mis' Harris will get the drift.
• Sade: "I'm cute as a horse."
• Rush: "Here's a fancy Christmas card: (reads): Come here, little sweetheart, give me a kiss.  Give me another – oh, boy, this is bliss.  I don't feel down-hearted; I do not feel blue. This is Christmas season of nineteen-forty two." - compiled by Barbara Schwarz, edited by Jimbo Mason

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It looks that for once, someone is selling Christmas cards in December.  As a matter of fact, there are oly eight days to go until Christmas.  If this were real life, no one would be buying cards at this time of year.  Not June and not the middle of December.

I don't think it's so unusual that Paul Rhymer depicts Santa with a cigar.  There are many depictions of turn-of the-century Santa Claus smoking either a cigar or pipe.