When youre a kid all can you and want to do is look out the car window when you travel with your parents. When I was nine, I would spend wondrous times on Christmas Eve at my grandmas. After a hearty meal of turkey and ham and the excitement of opening presents from under the tree, we would have to drive home. The drive home was about 40 minuets, but when you are young and waiting for Christmas morning it seems like 40 hours.
When we drove out of the house the ground was white with snow, but like broken mirror it would still reflect the lights that covered the house in red and green. The road was frozen with ice; the car would slide as if it were a slay. When youre young you dont worry about sliding off the road because you trust in your parents so much. Time moved a differently at that age. You understand that you were getting older but not how fast. At first it seemed that we were the only car on the road, as though time stood still and all the other cars were frozen in place. It seemed as though snow flakes would never hit the ground but just sit there in the air waiting for our car windshield to collide with them.
The things of childhood creation I saw on the way home were being destroyed by the same thing that made them, snow. Throw the frosted window I could see the half melted snow men that lay there missing an eye, but still with that joyous grin on their faces. The snow angels arms being filled in by fall derbies from a frozen tree branch. The ice forts that stood strong for the days battle of wits and imagination now fall down not to a tundra of snow canons balls, but bitter cold wind.
We would drive by malls that would be closing letting out half drunken Santa clauses. These people would return from their one month hiatus of fulfilling a childs dream to meat old Chris Cringle, would go back to being bums. When we entered the highway all the cars turning singles seemed to blink with the melody of here comes Santa Clause that was playing on the radio. The highway was covered with people on the way home Christmas parties. It was the only time I remembered that it seemed that no one in traffic was in a rush to get home, but just wanting to stay in this moment long as they could. The salt truck would drive by being like a gentle giant, moving slowly through the street guiding the way home.
My eyes grow heavy but I kept them open wide when my dad pointed at passing airplane in the sky and said it was Santa. I tried to stay awake, I wanted to get home and run down to catch the old red man in action. I remembered looking out the window in a daze, it is not as though I feel asleep, but the mystical-like night and my dream just mixed perfectly together. That could be the best thing about Christmas being with your family for that short time every thing seemed prefect.
