You know how, during Christmas, there’s that one moment — you can almost hear the “click” — when you know it’s, well, Christmas? For me, it’s always been something intangible: The first taste of my mom’s bourbon pecan cake, the amazing lights on my neighbor’s houses, the sound of the sleigh bells that always hang on our front door.
This year, my “click” happened today …
It was book report day at my kid’s school, and each of them had to read a Christmas book and bring five things in a paper bag to illustrate the story. (Great idea, no?)
Well, Tomas picked the special book of our season, “Mrs. Claus Takes a Vacation,” by his cousin, my nephew, Linas Alsenas. As if it wasn’t cool enough to have your cousin be a published author, Tomas got a chance to talk about our family’s Lithuanian heritage (one of the pictures shows Mrs. Claus hanging out with people in Lithuanian native costumes), and we all got to celebrate Linas’s terrific story.
I, especially, love it because it’s all about Mrs. Claus getting a break from the North Pole by setting out on an adventure of her own, while Santa bakes the cookies, decorates the house and gets ready for the big night without her. She gets back in time for Christmas, of course, when she’s delighted to discover … well, you’ll just have to read it for yourself.
What’s your Christmas “click”? Have you felt it yet?
December 19th, 2006 at 8:56 am
For me Christmas came just this past Sunday . My daughter, Lil, and I decided to “sneak” away to Sears (not exactly your typical sneak-away place but we did have the luxury of and hour and 1/2 together). Asleep hubby and two sleeping babies provided this much needed fun. At any rate, we were going down the escalator to look at the diswashers ( and man they’re somthin’ now) and dryers and all that neat electrical stuff when suddenly my mind flashed back to about my 4th year of life. It was during the Christmas season and my Dad decided to run up to Sears for some little gadget.So he took me with him. Suddenly, I found myself very lost and mad as you know what. But more than anything I was scared to death. All of the sudden some angel of a man picked me up, put me on his shoulders and walked me around the entire basement of Sears until I spotted my Dad. A moment to remember for sure. I shared this story with my daughter as we headed down the escalator and she looked at me and said, ” you won’t ever let me get lost will you?” All I could do was gulp. But finding my Daddy that Christmas was the best present I ever got.