by Noella Noelophile®
(Royalty-free image by Gerhard Gellinger from Pixabay)
Merry Christmas! To me, that very phrase sounds bursting with magic.
This is the season for creating magic. The Santa packages mysteriously left at the door; the festive lights; the sound of carols. And I’m remembering a lot of Christmas magic today.
The first really magical Christmas moment I can recall came when I was about five.
Royalty-free image by Kelsey Vere from Pixabay
My mom worked for a life-insurance company in New York City, and they had a Christmas party every year. She would always take me, and Santa would arrive after the dinner and festivities.
But the magical part happened on the way over.
We took a bus down Fifth Avenue, on an evening in early December.
Garlands festooned the street, as far as the eye could see. Every store glowed with colored lights. Light snow flurries were falling.
It was enchanting–even for a kid anxious to see Santa.
Fast forward by about seventeen years.
I was on my own in San Francisco (at at time when young single people could still actually afford a single apartment there!). I worked for a large card store in Ghirardelli Square. And when my shift was over, the time had come to go Christmas shopping, on Fisherman’s Wharf.
Now, as a kid from the East Coast, I’d often wondered how anyone could feel Christmasy without snow. This was my first Christmas in The City.
And walking down the Wharf, the first sights you saw were the ships, moored in the harbor, with multicolored lights on their masts. Small independent shops were lit up in their Christmastime best. And everyone was having fun shopping.
I came back to my apartment laden down with packages, and feeling very Christmasy indeed!
And so many magical moments, through the decades of Christmas I’ve experienced, had to do with the efforts of others to make them so.
One Christmas I especially remember was the one where, as a preteen, I returned from an errand to my grandmother’s house. My favorite uncle had dropped by while I was out.
“Do you hear your Christmas present?” he asked.
I listened–and a record player was playing the Firestone Christmas album! (Remember how gas stations used to sell vinyl records to get business, ‘way back when?)
And we still have most of those records. He had gathered five or six Christmas compilations, along with year-round orchestral and pop selections he thought an eleven-year-old would like.
As Christmas 2019 makes its appearance, who or what has made it magical for you? And what magic will you create–today and over Christmastide?
Merry Christmas!