The Magic Always Finds Us

Then, 2002.

Mike and I raced to the Dunes Station platform, reaching the South Shore Line train within seconds of it departing. Panting and laughing about our near miss, we plopped ourselves down in the nearest seats. Our cheeks were flushed from the run and the cold, and a little from the rush of young love. 

It was our first Christmas together. The next day, we would say a teary goodbye from my dorm room. He would drive home in his Pontiac Sunfire to spend the holidays with his parents in Ohio and I would jump in the backseat of a sedan sharing a ride with two other students I barely knew from our college headed home to Wisconsin. It would be a long winter break spending Christmas and New Year’s apart. 

But we weren’t thinking about that tonight. Tonight we were on our way to celebrate Christmas, just us, in downtown Chicago. 

Christmas in the City! I’d dreamed of this ever since I first watched Miracle on 34th Street when the magic of Christmas on the streets of New York transformed a doubting girl. And to be in love? It couldn’t get any better than that. 

An hour later, the train pulled into the Randolph Street Station and we made our way up the escalator stairs. Gliding up and into the city I could hardly breathe from the exhilaration. The sky was dark but the city lit up like a Christmas tree. Salvation Army Santas rang bells at every corner. Pedestrians rushed by, their arms full of packages ready to go home and tuck under a tree. Twinkling lights hung from every light pole. Storefront windows painted charming scenes. Somewhere in the distance I could hear carolers singing songs, as if we had stepped into a Dickonsonian era. 

And then—you can’t make this stuff up— tiny little snowflakes started dancing from the sky. 

“Is this real life?!” I squealed. The joy! The magic! The wonder! It was enough to make me want to steal a line from the movie Elf–even though it hadn’t been made yet–and twirl around on the streets singing “I’m in love, I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it!”

I stole a glance at Mike’s eyes to see if he was seeing what I was seeing. He wasn’t. 

He was looking at me. 

Then, 2012.

She was crying. And I was crying. 

Her pale pink snowsuit splayed out across the hardwood floor of our Chicago condo. I kneeled over it, attempting to stuff her cranky limbs into the legs and arm holes like a puffy sausage. 

“I know. I know. You don’t like this. It’s going to be ok,” I cooed to my nearly four month old first born Caroline, but mostly to myself. 

The lights of our Christmas tree mocked me in the corner. It’s Christmas. The season of perpetual hope. Where is your joy? Where is your magic? 

I didn’t know. I was tired from not sleeping. Tired from the shock of motherhood. Tired of being alone in an apartment with a baby that didn’t appreciate the Christmas magic like I thought she should.

Mike’s commuter bus would arrive at the corner of Damen and Montrose in a half hour. In forty minutes he would be at our door ready to help with the evening shift. But I couldn’t wait those extra ten minutes. We needed to get out. Now.
Strapped to my chest, Caroline curled into me as soon as her face hit the cold December air. When she adjusted, she looked up. I thought she might rest while we walked. But the sparkle of lights on the neighbors’ houses against the dark evening sky caught her attention. Stars dotted her hazel eyes from the reflection. At least someone was enjoying the season.

I pounded my frustrations into the pavement with each step of our walk. There would be no fancy Christmas dinner this year. No magical walk through the downtown streets. No festive Christmas parties with friends. We hadn’t even done our traditional gift buying day. I had ordered gifts off Amazon from my couch in the middle of one of the many nursing sessions. I thought Christmas was supposed to get even more magical with children. Somehow the magic seemed to skip us this year.

I reached the corner and stood waiting for the crosswalk light to turn. I remembered a similar December night a year ago waiting at the same corner for his bus. That time my face glowed with the news I carried in my pocket—a test that told us our lives were about to change forever. That year the stars were in my eyes. 

I crossed the street just as his bus pulled into the intersection. Mike stepped off the bus, and brightened when he noticed us waiting for him. The sigh of the bus brakes matched mine. Everything always felt better when he was around.

He kissed the top of Caroline’s head first, and then my own.

“Hello my girls.”

I smiled. Was it the first time that day?

We turned to cross the street to head home and as we stepped off the curb, he took my hand in his. On a different day, I would pummel him with the whoas of my day, run through my latest sleep strategy, ask a lot of questions for which he wouldn’t have answers. 

Tonight, we stayed quiet, all but Mike quietly whistling a Christmas tune under his breath. This time, the Christmas lights reflected in my eyes, all the way home. 

Now, 2022.

It’s 7:13 AM on a Thursday morning in December. I should be a really good writer and paint the scene for you with a bunch of descriptive words. But to save me some time, I’m going to just say picture the scene in Home Alone when the family realizes they are going to be late and there are just people rushing around back and forth with bags of stuff and trying to get ready and asking a million questions. I mean, we did not sleep in, and there are only five of us in this house. But what I’m saying is a household of young children getting ready for school and work in the middle of the hubbub that is December feels like eleven, including me, five boys, six girls, four parents, two drivers, and a partridge in a pear tree. 

I’m standing at the kitchen counter trying to finish up my grocery order, which is a terrible place to stand. I’m guaranteed to be interrupted 1327 times and lose my train of…

“Mom, do we have any syrup?”

“Did you look?” I say to the questioner. Who is leaning against the refrigerator. Where we keep the syrup.

“No.”

Stare. Stare. Stare. “Mom. Do we?”

Sigh. “Look” I say gesturing to the refrigerator, in my most calm voice possible in that moment. It’s Christmas. We’re supposed to be extra kind at Christmas, right? Must work on this. “It’s next to the yogurt. YOGURT!”

I quickly add yogurt to cart before I’m interrupted again by a different child.

“Oh mom” interrupting child number two pops her head in. “Put hot chocolate on the list.”

“We have some.”

“No, for school. We’re supposed to bring some for our last day before the Christmas break party, remember?”

Remember? Of course I don’t remember. I can’t even remember if we are out of milk, even though the answer is always yes.

I should add milk to cart.

But before I do–and don’t ask me how I got from milk to teacher gifts in this weird give a mouse a cookie scenario; it made sense at the time–I remember another task I need to do right as Mike walks into the kitchen to refill his coffee. 

“We still have to fill out teacher cards.” He must see the desperation in my eyes.

“On it.” He responds without looking up.

“Just write a little note and have the kids…”

“Babe, I got it.” I love this man. “Go shower.”

I love him even more.

I make a quick exit through the dining room toward the bathroom before anything else distracts me. Terrible idea.

“Mommy sit with me.” The four year old sits at the table with his half eaten breakfast in front of him, pleading with me with those long eye lashes and charming grin that makes me forget I’m the adult in charge. 

“Oh sweetie, I would love to but I have to get in the shower.”

“Sit with me.” The cute four year old is gone. The Boss is back, and I don’t mean Springsteen.

“Babe, I have to go…”

“Sit with me or read me a book.” He’s an angry elf.

“Hey Leo, I need your help making cards for your teachers.” Mike slides onto the bench next to Leo and nudges me towards the bathroom. “Babe, I got this.” He says for the 29th time that morning and I swoon, but also I run to the bathroom because I know better.

Five minutes later I’m standing in the swirling steam taking deep breaths in and out, inviting the hot water to open up my tight muscles. Every year it’s like this isn’t it? No matter how organized I say I’m going to be, no matter how many lists I make or intentions I set, come mid December I’m running around like a snowman with my head fallen off (that’s the Christmasy version I just came up with.) Christmas parties and teacher gifts and cookie baking and santa visits and…

“Hey babe.”

…and interruptions. 

“I only count six gift cards for teachers. I think we’re supposed to have seven.” But before I can reply, he finishes his thought. “You know what, don’t worry about it. I’ll pick one up between our Christmas shopping and my Christmas party tonight.” Have I mentioned I love this man? But wait, did he say…

“You have a Christmas party tonight?”

“Yeah. Happy hour. With coworkers. Remember?”

No, but ‘tis the season.

He leaves and I get back to my shower ruminations. On the other side of the door I can hear the eight year old loudly singing the Carol of the Bells, the rock version. His singing is very obnoxious and in different circumstances I would be annoyed. But something about it sends me back to city streets–lights, snowflakes, joy. The magic of those memories of the Christmas season flood my mind as I…

“Hey, mom?”

“Ahh!!” I scream as the ten year old pops her head into the shower unannounced.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Can I take this to school?” She’s holding a red mug with snowflakes.

“Uh yeah, that’s fine.” I’m yanked from the Christmas past to the present where I suddenly remember the grocery list I never finished and the shopping I’m doing that day and…

The shopping. I smile at this thought. Mike and I are taking the morning while all the kids are at school to go Christmas shopping and grab lunch and take in Christmas in the city, just like we used to all those years ago. In this moment with all of the to dos it feels reckless, and impossible.

And yet through the years–the times when the magic is all around and the times when we have to walk a bit to find it–we’ve learned the one constant that matters–being together. While it used to be as simple as hopping on a train, now we plan for it, like a very detailed battle plan. 

Later we’ll spend 17 minutes hunting for missing mittens, add 13 more things to the grocery order, and have 75 arguments with the four year old before he finally makes it into his classroom. But Mike will run back to the car, say “step on it, quick! Before anyone stops us!” We’ll peel out of the preschool parking lot, with Christmas music pumping through the speakers, and our hearts will be racing from the joy of it all. I’ll take his hand and he’ll look at me, both of us grinning like we were nineteen and twenty all over again.

It’s Christmas after all. The magic always finds us in the end.

This post was written as part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to read the next post in this series "Then and Now.”
PS. Want even more content on Christmas ups and downs? My next Raise & Shine Letter comes out soon and it covers just that. And so much more, links and fun and GIFs, oh my. Don’t miss it!