December 20, 2007

Confessions from the Carpool

Presto! Christmas magic

By Shana McLean Moore
Times Columnist

I can sum up so many of the issues that plague me with a single word. The word “pre-teens,” for example, goes hand in hand with “drama.” Aging? “Gracelessly.” Homework? “Ugh.” To-do lists? “Coffee.” Squabbling siblings? “Over-the-river-and-through-the-woods-to-grandmother’s-house-you-go!”

But if I ever had to play a real round of free association with a psychiatrist and the word “Christmas” hung out there in need of a word partner, I think I would stand there drooling until the doc dipped into his jar of sample meds. What on earth can a girl say about a season that brings out the best and the worst of her at the very same time without being diagnosed with schizophrenia?

I suppose if I didn’t have time to analyze it -- which I recognize is the point of the whole window to the soul exercise -- my knee-jerk reaction would probably be to blurt out “Magic.” Since a Google search for “Christmas Magic” yields more than 20 million results, I suppose I’m not alone. As a point of reference, the clichéd pairings of peanut butter and jelly, bread and butter, and celebrity DUI come in at under a measly two million.

And Christmas is magical. Who can resist all those chestnuts roasting on an open fire, the jingling bells, the decked halls and rockin’ around the Christmas tree? When you couple all the perky lyrics of the carols with the plots of the storybooks, it’s easy to have visions of sugarplums dancing in your head.

If, that is, you are a child.

My own youthful associations with Christmas magic were the things miracles are made of. Learning about virgins having babies can have that effect on a girl, as can stories about a morbidly obese man in a red suit who somehow fits down the chimney and avoids doing hard time for home invasion.

But my own personal moment of marveling at the divine came at age 12 when I unwrapped my very own telephone. I swear that the minute I plugged it into the wall -- as one did in prehistoric times -- the lights dimmed to an ethereal glow and a choir of angels hummed in the distance. I mean, pfft, like you could explain that away as one blown light bulb and the first sound of a dial tone all my own.

Now that I’m a parent, my interpretation of Christmas Magic is totally different. In fact, it has become “Davidian,” which is my own invented word to describe the flashy magic of David Blaine and David Copperfield. You know, the kind that looks easy to the spectators but takes a hidden crew of 12, a trick hat and a bladeless saw in order to delight and amaze the crowd.

This new mindset started the year I realized that the daily responsibilities an adult juggles don’t just go into hibernation in December. Yet somehow we are also expected to shop till we drop, wrap till we want to nap, bake till the kids wake and write cards till… till we think of something clever that rhymes with card.

And wouldn’t you know, each year there’s a new added layer of difficulty to the trick—something as impossible as one of the Davids hanging from his toenail above Times Square. But even that seems easy when compared to a parent’s feat of pulling the year’s most coveted and elusive electronic gadgetry out of thin air.

Think about it, parents, if we could pull a Nintendo Wii out of our hat this Christmas, we would be guaranteed a Las Vegas run rivaling Celine Dion’s. But we would have to earn it. First, we would have to make a crowd of dedicated shoppers who had waited in line since 3 a.m. disappear. Then, we would have to wave our magic wands over the one-dollar bills in our wallets to transform them into C-notes. Short on those? Well, then be prepared to tell the cashier to “pick a card, any card” and pray she won’t need to work her retail magic and cut the credit card in half when it is declined.

Houdini, Schmoodini! This leaves me thinking that the most spectacular illusion of all time is when a parent can do all of this while smiling and humming along to “It’s the most won-der-ful time of the year.”

The real kicker is that despite all the sacrifices we make that are sure to land us on a therapist’s couch, we actually think it’s worth it when we see the awestruck look in our children’s eyes that proves that Christmas magic still has the stuff of miracles.

Shana McLean Moore is a resident of Almaden Valley. She invites you to listen to her free podcast and read more of her columns by visiting www.caffeiantedponderings.com.