Therefore your reference to the environment surrounding Police Chief John Montanio’s retirement as “the biggest secret "…since Santa Clause’s identity was revealed…" is flawed.
As a onetime partner in a mixed marriage, I know that Santa Claus is a proper
noun, not a type of grammatical expression (Santa Clause).
P.S. Has Santa Claus’s identity ever been revealed?
Martha Gunther, Culver City
Ari’s Response: Drat. Caught again. As a onetime partner in a mixed (up) marriage myself, I should have recognized that Mr. Claus, is an ethnic Pole of the North persuasion. Instead of a bris, on the eighth day after his birth, Mr. Claus’s parents, being Gentiles, had an “e” deleted instead. As a memento of the occasion, the elder Clauses sent an email to relatives and friends.
P.S. Mr. Claus/e’s identity has been revealed. But I am only allowed to speak about it publicly on Purim.