Wonderous

Each year, as the holidays approach I picture special family moments in my mind. You know, the fire crackling and children laughing as we trim the tree with white lights and sparkling ornaments.

But those moments usually turn out much differently - more like the fire smoking up the basement, children throwing themselves to the ground in sobbing tantrums, the tree lights blinking in a tangled heap and me pouring another glass of wine.

I get it – the kids are young, life’s not perfect, blah, blah. I make the most of those moments at the time and laugh about them later.

But man, when you do actually experience one of those imagined Christmas moments it’s really something to savor.

We had one Sunday. Mid afternoon we bundled up the kids (it was below zero), met up with a neighbor family and visited the local Santa Village. As we strolled into the park the kids ran ahead, working their way through the giant candy cane-lined paths to Santa’s house. With no one else in line, they took their time chatting with the jolly old man, asking him for a ball and princess “stuff” and thanking him for a sucker afterward.

With a stop in the kitchen to frost cookies with Mrs. Claus, it was back outside for a sleigh ride and a quick visit to three of the infamous reindeer. Warming up in a couple of the other buildings we made tree ornaments, wrote letters to Santa (I whipped up one for a Flip camera, naturally) and watched a large toy train on display. We left with none of the four kids crying, everyone happily thinking about the upcoming Christmas, and the lights of Santa’s Village happily twinkling behind us.