It’s February, and I am lying in the dark while the rest of my family sleeps. For some reason, I’m thinking about my younger daughter Maia’s quirky Christmas list, which read like this:
1. A teddy
2. A real pig
3. Diamonds
4. Batman socks for Daddy
5. Snow
I am just thinking how it was so like her to include a present for someone else, when I hear a tumble of footsteps. Maia comes running into our room, curly hair wild, eyes full of the dream she has just had.
“Mummy, there was a noise on the roof and I go up to see and it was Santa and Elfie and it was cold. I not have my slippers.”
“Really? Did they see you?”
“Yes! They ask me to help them. The sleigh big and green and full of…”
“Presents?”
“Snow! We throw it off the roof and it make the garden white!”
“What a wonderful dream,” I say, kissing her on the forehead as I get out of bed and wander over to the window.
“Elfie come back in the midnight!” she insists, pulling at my pajamas in her eagerness to convince me that Santa’s favorite elf returned to our home last night. “I see him, Mummy.”
Smiling, I open the curtains to welcome the morning, turn to the window… and gasp. We have had the first snowfall of the year.
Perhaps there is such a thing as Christmas magic, after all…