Irving the Snowchicken is coming to town

It began, like all holidays and superheroes do, with an origin story. Late one night a few years ago, we told our children, a stranger appeared on our doorstep. It was a chicken, a Bantam rooster with pure white plumage and an impressive red crown and wattles. He was from the Snowy North. And he came with good news: He'd visit our family with gifts and good cheer every year on this night onward. All we had to do is write our wishes on a note and burn them before going to bed. He'd fly over our house, reassemble the ashes and then, while we slept, haul our goodies into the house and pack them into pants hung over the fireplace.

Every year the holiday gets more elaborate. That's the thing about a customized holiday; since all the traditions were plucked from thin air, new ones materialize all the time. We now have a songbook of Winter Wonderday classics that includes a recording of "Born to Be Wild" with all-poultry vocals. While burning our wish lists, we now raise our voices in a song that includes a line written by 7-year-old Charlie: "Santa is fired from the job/ He gives presents like a slob." We've also begun the custom of leaving out a tray of food near the pant-festooned mantle -- Irving, the kids discovered, favors sunflower seeds and fruit juice. And we now go to great lengths to build a nest for Irving, the construction of which begins with a Winter Wonderhike to collect twigs and leaves, which we then stuff inside a ring of chicken wire (and which is mysteriously littered the next day with soft white feathers that look very much like they were clumsily extracted from an expensive pillow).

In recent years we've spent the evening with bowls of candy, frosting and cookie pieces, building entire encampments of Snowy North gingerbread chicken coops. And we've found that no Winter Wondereve is complete without a feast at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, where we delight in the combination of maple-soaked fried dough and the sacrificial body of our host.

Friends and family are mostly supportive, but it has been suggested that Winter Wonderday may needlessly confuse our kids or expose them to ridicule from nonbelievers. One can only guess what the playground alpha boys and girls make of our kids' wide-eyed reverie over the magical talking snowchicken who fills their pants with presents. I'm happy to report, however, that the kids take it in stride. To hear them tell it, our family has an exclusive contract with Irving, so it's no wonder that other kids might not understand, or even be jealous. And instead of keeping quiet about the holiday, they embellish it -- in their version of the myth, Irving works on an "ice farm" where all ice cream and popsicles are made and where he's assisted by an army of fluffy white helper chicks. On the way to school today, my eldest son, Charlie, told me Irving selected our family over all others because he heard my wife and I bickering about the holiday all the way from the Snowy North.

Charlie is a smart, sophisticated third grader, but when it comes to Winter Wonderday, he still believes. He buried his doubts last year after obtaining what he believes is definitive proof of Irving's existence. In the weeks leading up to the big day, we spent hours discussing plans to photograph or videotape Irving during his visit. The stakes were high, we understood. If the so-called Irving plot was discovered, our feathered friend might take back our presents and never visit us again. I rejected a proposal to stay up all night inside a hidden sofa cushion fort. Charlie accepted that we couldn't justify the cost of a motion-activated video camera. And so we settled on a more straightforward strategy. Alongside the 800-twig-count nest, we left a note and a camera. "We want to see what you look like! We hope your feathers are sturdy enough to push the button!" And lo and behold, we awoke the next morning to discover not only a bounty of gifts but also a blurry but identifiable Polaroid self-portrait of a noble white chicken that could only be Irving himself.

The kids are 8, 6 and 2 now, and Winter Wonderday is much more than an in joke (no Festivus or Christmakkah for us!). Several other families join us each year. An old friend has even begun marking the holiday with his interfaith family all the way in Maui. And the kids have begun evangelizing to friends, pointing out all the ways Winter Wonderday is better than that other holiday. Nests are more eco-friendly than trees. Unlike Santa, who is so busy with his Coke billboards and shopping mall appearances that he often forgets presents and leaves behind a mess of chimney soot, Irving is courteous enough to enter through the (tinsel-decorated) dog door.

And perhaps, most important, pants are way bigger than stockings.

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