A magical Christmas

Christmas is mostly for kids, and I think it is perfectly OK to let their imaginations be filled with Santa and reindeer and chimneys. When my kids were little we had a tradition that lasted for a brief while until some cynical brat ruined it.

We lived in Billings, Montana. It’s a nice town, mostly, and is under what are called the Rims, a long geological formation, part of it seen above, that runs the length of the town. I am told that they formed as waves from an inland sea washed in and out, not unlike Galveston, Texas.

We were Catholic at the time, and would attend mass on Christmas eve, the kids bubbling with restless excitement. After church we would drive around the city looking at lights. In the meantime, a man who owned a helicopter would hook it up to a Santa sled complete with reindeer, and lit up bright red. He then flew it over the Rims. It was highly visible, the sled that is, not the helicopter. The kids saw it, and we could not get them home fast enough for bed.

We got away with it for a couple of years, and when we prepared to do the same tradition, we were informed by our oldest that it was just a guy with a helicopter. Don’t tell the younger kids, I said, but it was too late. The whole school knew.

It’s always a problem when the older kids spill the beans to younger kids, and anyway, nothing lasts forever. But for a couple of years there, Christmas at our house was magical.