rom my house to yours, best Christmas wishes to you all. I remember crossing the country on the train one Christmas. From our room with a view, all of America went speeding past our window. Up until then, I always thought (if I thought at all) that Christmas was a local thing, my house, my neighborhood, my downtown; maybe it got a little broader when we got in the car in our jammies to go see the lights on special streets called Candy Cane Lane and Frosty the Snowman Avenue; but still, I never got the full view of Christmas in America until that train trip.
hose nights on the train introduced me to a whole new reality…even tiny houses, out in the middle of nowhere, are decorated right now; houses deep in snow with just one string of lights outlining the porch; pretty brick houses in the Midwest with a single candle burning in each window, wreaths on door after door. When the train came into a town, we had long looks down small-town main streets, with lights and streamers decorating the lamps and festooning over the street; trucks pulled up to crossing stops with wreaths on their bumpers …and sky scrapers reflected twinkling lights into the Chicago River. Sometimes, chugging along, we could look right into cozy living room windows and see the trees all lit up inside. It gives me great comfort to know we are all in this boat together.
