Holiday Memories

I love Christmas and the tradition of watching Christmas movies. Some of the movies I like to watch during the holidays are "The Bishop's Wife," with Loretta Young, David Niven, and Cary Grant


"It's a Wonderful Life"; "A Christmas Story" with Ralphy and his family being serenaded by the Chinese waiters after the neighbors' dogs eat their Christmas turkey; "A Christmas Carol," where Tiny Tim has a happy Christmas after all.

And, like my grandkids, I love "The Polar Express" because the child in me can still imagine looking at the clock just before drifting off to sleep and then dreaming that I'm awakened by a magic train that takes me to the North Pole where I can see the northern lights shimmering in the night sky.


It makes me think of some of my favorite childhood memories of winter: looking out of a window covered with fern-shaped frost, where my mom had stuffed newspapers in the cracks to keep out the cold wind; going out for a walk after midnight in the freshly fallen snow so that my tracks were the only thing visible in the diamond's glint of the surface; seeing the trees, covered with creaking ice, looking like crystal decorations in a sparkling fairyland. I remember days when we left school early because of an incoming blizzard, having my father waiting outside the school with the sleigh to take me and my sister home while we rode in comfort under a blanket, then getting home and making cut out snowflakes with my aunt while we watched the snow come down in bigger and bigger flakes. I can almost smell the crisp, cold air, and feel of the soft flakes falling against my skin.