For you skeptics and bah-humbuggers out there, I tell you, the legend is real. As real as your hand held in front of your face.
We, my mother, sister and me, had returned from Grandma and Grandpa's house where we always spent Christmas Eve.
'52 Pontiac in the driveway, presents in hand, Christmas midnight was cloudless, hushed and celery snap crisp. We were very merry and the only creatures stirring for at least two blocks, when suddenly:
Tinkling jingles penetrate the night air. Clearly.
“Shhhhh! Can you hear that?” I ask, attentive to listening.
All three of us come to an absolute silent stop, glancing at each other. Checking up and down the streets to see if we can locate the origin of this fabled and seasonal sound, nothing and no one is around.
“Look! Up there, in the sky,” I cry. Mom, my sister, and I, mouths muted oh's, are watching blinking lights. The bells are above us.
“That's a plane,” my sister insists.
“No, it's not. There's a plane flying, that dot.” I point to a measured blink of red and green. “See there, how high up it is.”
What we are watching is not, I repeat, NOT an airplane. The lights and bells overhead are much closer to us and twinkling. The arc and speed of flight is also much different one from the other.
“Mom! Patti! It's Santa Claus! Oh my,” I pause, wonder struck.
We, all three, are rooted to the spot, doing naught, except staring. Normal time suspended, everything is occurring in slow motion. I knew we had crossed a threshold into the fairy tale, magical world which exists alongside the one that the unimaginative are convinced does not.
The gift of certainty is mine.
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