Elise & Paul + 3

I think we become jaded about Christmas in our adulthood. I know, I am, I can say that it is not my favorite holiday. I like gifts and food, yes. But, I don't enjoy the stress or expectations that accompany it. I expect everyone to be patient, thankful, polite to store clerks, not cut, butt or otherwise bitch in line. I find this is the time of year when I put my "Officer Elise" badge on (as Paul like to call it) and defend the hard working clerks, tellers and servers of the world, instead of just flitting around in a holiday trance. Hard work, people, very hard.

I think we could all say at one time that we used to love Christmas, it was magical, mystical, cold, crisp and white(at least where I come from). It meant pajamas all day, the smell of mom's cooking, and late afternoon sledding trips, hot cocoa and laying under the tree rearranging clothespin people ornaments. It was a time when you dreamed of little elves making your toys, not factories, you sat on Santa's lap and didn't see the glue unglueing on his beard and couldn't identify the smell of Marlboro lights that he snuck on his break.

All the whimsy and mystery that makes Christmas so Magical seems to fade away and then become a forgotten memory, like training wheels, banana seats and braces. That is until you have a child of your own. Then you see it all again, those memories are not so hidden, not so hard to retrieve. You witness just how magical it is to a child to see a tree in their living room, and even more joy as it becomes wrapped in tiny lights and colorful dangling ornaments. To hear Christmas carols for the first time, to hear an orchestra and listen to the jingling of bells.

Paul and I have exchanged many a knowing glances in the past week, watching as Sam points and laughs with glee each and every time he comes in to the living room and witnesses our tree as if for the first time. He looks at the tree and then at us as if to say "Look! There is a tree..... in our house! Those are usually only outside! How cool!" He chased ornaments around the floor last night and stayed up way past bedtime taken with the excitement of the night. We love it. I will speak for both of us and say that we have a little spark in our hearts this year and a sparkle in our eyes (not sayin it's tears, not sayin) that may have been dimmed, even burned out for the past 20 years or so. It is, I guess, what life is all about, why we have children (besides to take care of us when we're old and grey) to remind that there is still such a thing as magic.