It doesn\u2019t seem much like Christmas to me. In the December rain, the Christmas lights look more forlorn than festive. It’s just another reminder that the magic of Christmas is missing for me this year. <\/span><\/p>\n I wonder where it went? I wonder how I’ll ever find it again.<\/span><\/p>\n The magic memories of Christmas that most of us treasure are unique to each of us. Looking back, things in the past always have a way of looking better than they probably really ever were. Everything in the present is colored by everything else going on in the present. Our daily lives can be busy and complicated. It seems odd that you really can\u2019t get a true picture of things until you can stop somewhere in the future and look back. And in that reflection you don\u2019t get a true picture either \u2013 you get a picture that looks better than the real one, better than it did when the memory was created and painted in your mind.<\/span><\/p>\n Tonight, I\u2019m living in the present and walking through a particularly nasty and cold December rain. It is the kind of night that would chill your bones and freeze your soul even in the middle of summer. That is if you dare to remember it. Maybe sometime, next July, I\u2019ll look back on this night and it won\u2019t seem as bad as it does now. I’m pretty sure it won’t.<\/span><\/p>\n Memory is a very charming flirt.<\/span><\/p>\n The rain is somewhere in between ice and snow and rain. It\u2019s just cold enough that ice is mixing in with the rain but not cold enough to turn to snow and brighten the dreary landscape with a lovely Christmas white.<\/span><\/p>\n The quiet neighborhoods in my little town are even quieter on this dreary night. The only sound I hear is the sound of ice pellets and raindrops pounding on the hood of my rain jacket.<\/span><\/p>\n I walk past the rows of houses anachronistically decorated for Christmas. The white, green, red, and blue lights don\u2019t twinkle with their normal festive happiness \u2013 instead, they glower like warning beacons. I feel uneasy and restive but I walk on, cold and uncomfortable.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m miles away from my home and even further away in my thoughts. I walk alone on a bleak and dreary December night. It\u2019s less than two weeks before Christmas and I cannot find the magic of Christmas anywhere. How do I find the magic of Christmas? Where do I look? Is there anyone who can tell me how to find it? Someone who knows the secret? Is there a \u201cHandbook of Christmas Magic\u201d that I can read that would help me find it?<\/span><\/p>\n I feel lost like the scarecrow in the \u201cWizard Of Oz\u201d, who set out on a long, perilous journey to look for something he already had. Memories are strange and fragile things. Like delicate crystals, they can be altered and changed so easily. They can be tearfully beautiful or they can be dreadfully painful. They can be as good as you want them or as bad as you make them.<\/span><\/p>\n The rain is more ice than rain now, the Christmas lights seem almost haunting as I pass them. I\u2019m feeling particularly vulnerable and unusually chilled tonight. I walk on despite my discomfort and increasingly dark mood. What a shame it is, I think, that I can\u2019t feel Christmas. The Christmas lights and decorations add to the gloom instead of brightening my spirits as they should. They seem almost mocking as they try to twinkle in the hazy gloam. It is a wet and cruel night.<\/span><\/p>\n I see a little neighborhood mom and pop store appear like a ghost in the night. I have been so lost in thought that I did not realize I had wandered this far from home. The little store looks invitingly warm and cozy as I (and my shivering soul) approach it. I think perhaps I will stop in and buy a newspaper to read when I finally get home but I did not fool myself \u2013 I want to go in because the store looks inviting and warm and dry. And perhaps because I think a kind \u201chello\u201d from the clerk inside might help jostle me from the dark and sad mood I\u2019m in.<\/span><\/p>\n I walk in and the store smells old-fashioned and good. There is some pine-roping hanging from the counter and some big, old-fashioned, Christmas lights decorating the coolers and the area behind the counter. It looks like something out of another decade… old ornaments and lights that had been dragged out of the same leaky musty attic for the past forty years and put back in that same place every January.<\/span><\/p>\n Nostalgia is an odd cocktail of feelings.<\/span><\/p>\n The coffee smells good and it looks hot. I pour a cup and pretend to look through the magazines and newspapers. I\u2019m standing there trying to decide exactly what I\u2019m feeling. I hear the door jangle and watch a little girl about six or seven come in the store with her mother. <\/span><\/p>\n The little girl has long, curly, strawberry-blonde hair, and she\u2019s wearing a bright green coat with a big Santa Claus pin on it. It\u2019s a one of a kind Santa Claus pin… it lights up when it’s touched. She kept touching it and it kept lighting up. Every time she touched it lit up and said \u201cHo! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!\u201d in a tinny, computer-generated, voice. I thought how annoying if you had to listen to that all day, every day. But tonight I find it comforting and happy.<\/span><\/p>\n I watch the little girl and her mom while pretending to peruse the periodicals. They came in to buy candy canes for their Christmas tree. I think it is wonderful that this family has waited this long to put up their Christmas tree. Mine has been up two weeks and I am already to the point where I\u2019m so used to it I don\u2019t see it anymore. I find it precious that they are going to put real candy canes on their Christmas tree. I\u2019m so sick of the department-store-look-designer-trees I see all over these days, I find this so refreshing. I wonder if they pop popcorn and make a garland out of popcorn and cranberries and thread. I am tempted to ask them but think better of it. You know how paranoid the world is these days.<\/span><\/p>\n I pick up a newspaper and pretend to scan the headlines. I can hear the tinny Santa voice: \u201cHo, Ho, Ho-ing\u201d away as the mom selects several boxes of red and white (that\u2019s the only real kind) of candy canes. The little girl\u2019s eyes are wide and full of wonder as only a child\u2019s eyes can be. I melt as I watch. I needed a good melting as cold and bitter as I was a few minutes ago.<\/span><\/p>\n Mom pays for the candy canes. The clerk bags them and hands the bag to the little girl. She practically lights up the little store with her one-tooth-missing smile. Just for a moment I am back in school and feel an unfamiliar rush of joy. I am walking down the street of my little town holding my grandfather\u2019s hand. We\u2019re going to see Santa Claus. \u201cThe real one\u201d, my grandpa reminds me.<\/span><\/p>\n I walk up to the counter just as the clerk hands the bag of real candy canes to the little girl, and stand behind them, waiting to pay for the newspaper. The mom and little girl turn to leave and the little girl looks up at me with big brown eyes and says, \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d with a smile so warm and real it reached in and took hold of my heart. I smile back and say \u201cMerry Christmas to you too!\u201d. The mom smiled at me, took the little girl\u2019s hand and disappeared out the door.<\/span><\/p>\n I pay for my newspaper, still reeling from the beautiful assault on my emotions and walk out into the night. The icy mixture of rain and sleet had turned into the most beautiful kind of snow; big, fluffy flakes that take forever to fall from the sky to the ground. A little miracle, I think to myself, as I head home in the suddenly beautiful winter night.<\/span><\/p>\n Christmas Magic! That\u2019s what it is. All of a sudden I feel the magic of Christmas that has evaded me for so long. The magic of Christmas has nothing to do with decorations, lights, presents, Christmas trees or anything so material. It has everything to do with a little girl\u2019s smile and a mom who bought candy canes. I begin to think of Dickens and a favorite passage from \u201cA Christmas Carol\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut you were always a good man of business, Jacob,\u2019 faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself. \u2018Business!\u2019 cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. \u2018Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!\u2019 [\u201cA Christmas Carol\u201d \u2013 Charles Dickens]<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n How wonderfully perfect it is that in the captivating smile of a child I find Christmas Magic. I am reminded, once again, that Christmas is more a matter of spirit than anything material. In the love of a mother for her child I find the magic of Christmas; and more than that, I rediscovered the Christmas Magic that has been so hard for me to find lately.<\/span><\/p>\n Charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, and love are all part of the Christmas Magic. And love is the greatest gift of all. In that little store, I saw the love only a mother and child can share \u2013 and I saw the Spirit of Christmas.<\/span><\/p>\n Now the icy rain has turned to snow and big beautiful snowflakes, fall gently from the dark winter sky. I pass house after house decorated for Christmas \u2013 the lights sparkling and bright and looking exactly as they should. As I pass by, I can feel the warmth of the families inside.<\/span><\/p>\n Another little miracle happened to me tonight. I witnessed memories being made. I saw perfect love in a child\u2019s smile and the spirit of Christmas pass between a mother and her child. In that instant, I found the magic of Christmas inside my heart where it has always been \u2013 and where it will always be \u2013 as long as I live.<\/span><\/p>\n The gifts we give that matter most are the ones that cannot be bought or sold. The love we share and the memories we create and the memories we leave behind are the greatest gifts we can ever give. <\/span><\/p>\n They are the only gifts that last a lifetime.<\/span><\/p>\n Merry Christmas!<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Magic of Christmas The Christmas lights glowing in the rain do not look much like Christmas lights to me. They look old and hazy, dull and out-of-place \u2014 and oddly out of time. I feel as though I have suddenly been thrust into the middle of a soggy, chilly March and people have forgotten to\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228,1741,2273],"tags":[2031,1720],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18288"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18288"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18291,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18288\/revisions\/18291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Merry](\"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/vic.png\")
The Christmas lights glowing in the rain do not look much like Christmas lights to me. They look old and hazy, dull and out-of-place \u2014 and oddly out of time. I feel as though I have suddenly been thrust into the middle of a soggy, chilly March and people have forgotten to take their Christmas decorations down.<\/span><\/p>\n