Atop the entrance table to my parents home stand tall a collection of  Carolers.  My mother has placed them there each Christmas for as long as I can remember.  Each year, without fail, she pulls them out of storage and gingerly places them facing forward for all to see.  It is as though they  are responsible for ringing in the holiday season.  I hate these Carolers.  I always have.  I find them supremely creepy.  And so it is on each holiday  that I have spent with my parents –  few these last years –  I turn them to face into the wall.  It is a daily ritual where Mom turns them outward facing only for me to turn them around.  That way, I won’t have to look at them.  This goes on for the entirety of my stay and has become one of the more twisted of our holiday rituals.