There's a long-standing Christmas tradition in my family.

It isn't leaving cookies and milk for Santa, or attending a church service, or volunteering in a soup kitchen, serving the poor and hungry a festive holiday meal.

Nope. Not in my family.

While you were doing goodness-knows-what, in true capitalistic fashion, my family and I have always done our part to bolster the economy. The long-standing Christmas tradition in my family is: 

The Tacky Gift Contest.

There are really only two rules for would-be contenders to qualify. 

Each entry:

Must be a gift,

  and

Must be tacky.

Past entries have included a set of breast-shaped coffee cups (and creamer, naturally), a stuffed black gorilla sporting a gold sequined dinner jacket, and of course, the piece de resistance, a dead, stuffed  lacquered armadillo, which someone with an obvious flair for style and fashion, artfully transformed into an oh-so chic ladies handbag.

See, the tail comes up...and around...fitting snugly into the armadillo's mouth and...never mind, suffice it to say, the armadillo carry-all was hands-down that year's winner—by the way, did you know some armadillos carry leprosy ? As if being a leper isn't bad enough, now everyone is asking, "Gee Bob, you didn't have leprosy yesterday—what happened ?" And there you are, having to explain what on earth you were doing picking up errant armadillos without armadillo-gloves, or long-handled armadillo-whoppers, or anything. 

Well this will take your mind off your troubles.

My friend Nate and I found them, quite by accident; Nate is a Christian, a good and decent man who tolerates all my snide remarks and godless ways.

But he's a cheap bastard, and loves all those "99 cents for Everything" stores. Which if you don't mind dangerously high levels of dioxin in your toothpaste/hemorrhoid cream is all right, I suppose. So one day I'm with C.B. there, at one of those Super-Lo-Valu places, and while he's fingering packages of off-off brand ramen noodles, I'm looking around at various and assorted crap. 

And then--I see them.

The sexy dog statues.

Picture if you will, statuettes of Collies and German Shepherds  standing on their hind legs...pan slowly up from their furry feet in high-heeled shoes, to their firm sculpted canine buttocks (but no tail) packed into constricting nurse's and flight attendant's uniforms...moving further up reveals plunging necklines just barely able to contain their bosomy contents, and heavily eyelashed doggie come-hither looks below nurses' and flight attendants' pill-box style hats, resting between fur-tipped ears...yes, ears, but no tail, I assume budget cuts, the key to a successful business is running a tight ship...

So at 99 cents each, I talked my tight-fisted friend into buying them and giving them to me, so I could claim them as an actual gift. And that's how I won the Tacky Christmas Gift Contest that year.

Yes, yes, I fudged a little—but honestly, as aware as I was by then of just how startling it is to come upon those pouty-mouthed, preening she-doggies sitting amidst cute little turtle paperweights and piggy-shaped gravy boats and what not, removing them from the shelves by whatever means necessary seemed like something of a duty to my fellow man, to spare the next unsuspecting consumer who happened down the proverbial pike.

Having seen them for myself, the most helpful thing I can say about the thinking behind sexy dog statues is, it has this in common with barbecue pizza—just because something is possible to do, doesn't necessarily mean it should be done. Frankly, I'm not as worried about the creator of the sexy dog statues as I am about the person who made the executive decision to green-light their manufacture. 

And may god have mercy on your soul if one of those porcelain canine sirens is sitting atop your bookcase, now.

You pervert.