Faith in Christmas
Merry Christmas, world. Even though there are people in it who aren’t Christian. I think that any holiday that means I’m together for days with my fine family, and I get to buy them stuff they need- or want and wouldn’t buy for themselves- is a fine institution. So Happy Holidays, or whatever works for you.
I just got back from Christmas Eve with a faction of the family in Bridger Valley. We ate, opened specific gifts, and sprinkled glitter-laced dry oatmeal to visually and olfactorily entice a certain eight reindeer; a new tradition, but a charming one. On the way home, through shining snowy fields, the moon picked out details of cozy farmhouses decked in cheerful lights. Every glowing house had extra vehicles. I saw truckers’ rigs at the T&A Travel Plaza and wondered why they weren’t home for Chrismas. Dad always made it home, and when the time came he couldn’t, we went to him. We haven’t had our Christmas Day walk on the beach for years now, but I will always treasure those mild San Diego afternoons in the quiet, sunny surf.
My cousins sent me the funniest card. It’s a caricature of Santa in his sleigh, which is teetering precariously on a little shack with a half-moon in the door. The reindeer are scattered on the ground looking perplexed, and Santa is shouting "No, No, No! I said, ‘off to the Shmidt house!’" I got the same card from someone else last year, and it’s just as hilarious now.
I’m tracking Santa on NORAD’s website. I think that if the Internet had been around when I was little, I would have believed in Santa far into my teens. If it wasn’t for my sister, I would have lost faith much earlier than I did, even. She had questioned Mom so incessantly at ten that Mom finally gave in and spilled the beans, and Christmas lost some of its magic for her, despite how tremendously spoiled we were. So one year when it looked like I was beginning to doubt, she went out with a broom handle and made ‘reindeer tracks’ that ended abruptly where the reindeer surely took off in the deep snow around the side of the house. Completely disregarding the sets of little moonboot tracks next to them, I was entirely convinced for a few more years. Now isn’t that a great sister?
I just got back from Christmas Eve with a faction of the family in Bridger Valley. We ate, opened specific gifts, and sprinkled glitter-laced dry oatmeal to visually and olfactorily entice a certain eight reindeer; a new tradition, but a charming one. On the way home, through shining snowy fields, the moon picked out details of cozy farmhouses decked in cheerful lights. Every glowing house had extra vehicles. I saw truckers’ rigs at the T&A Travel Plaza and wondered why they weren’t home for Chrismas. Dad always made it home, and when the time came he couldn’t, we went to him. We haven’t had our Christmas Day walk on the beach for years now, but I will always treasure those mild San Diego afternoons in the quiet, sunny surf.
My cousins sent me the funniest card. It’s a caricature of Santa in his sleigh, which is teetering precariously on a little shack with a half-moon in the door. The reindeer are scattered on the ground looking perplexed, and Santa is shouting "No, No, No! I said, ‘off to the Shmidt house!’" I got the same card from someone else last year, and it’s just as hilarious now.
I’m tracking Santa on NORAD’s website. I think that if the Internet had been around when I was little, I would have believed in Santa far into my teens. If it wasn’t for my sister, I would have lost faith much earlier than I did, even. She had questioned Mom so incessantly at ten that Mom finally gave in and spilled the beans, and Christmas lost some of its magic for her, despite how tremendously spoiled we were. So one year when it looked like I was beginning to doubt, she went out with a broom handle and made ‘reindeer tracks’ that ended abruptly where the reindeer surely took off in the deep snow around the side of the house. Completely disregarding the sets of little moonboot tracks next to them, I was entirely convinced for a few more years. Now isn’t that a great sister?
posted by A at
1:07 AM
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