Someone is putting Santa Claus hats on the parking meters of downtown Potsdam. The hats cover the meters right up, and are symbolic of the village government’s moratorium on parking-meter charges through the end of the month. Any parking space you can land downtown will be free, right through December 31, and spaces are available. Some mysterious donor, possibly Santa Claus, places the hats on meters to make it abundantly clear, even to people who don’t read the papers, that parking is free this month. It would seem to require the heart of an Ebenezer Scrooge to denude a parking meter of its Santa hat at Christmas, advertising as the hats do free parking, which is of benefit to shoppers, to local merchants and thereby to the local economy in which we all share. Unfortunately, some more whimsical members of the community aren’t ashamed to swipe these hats. Probably late at night. Probably to generate a little laughter among themselves and their companions on a midnight saunter through town. Santa hats do make good comedy props, no doubt, and they are right there to grab. But even if that’s not the real explanation, the fact remains that some of the hats have been disappearing. And the pockets of Santa Claus, or whoever’s been buying the hats, can’t be that deep, and if it is Santa his dough should be spent on bringing presents to kids, with a few parking meter Santa hats in the budget just a little, on the side. So everybody, longtime residents, local students, midnight ramblers, everybody, please don’t swipe Santa hats, please shop downtown, and have a joyous holiday season.