Night falls early around Christmastime in Dreamscape. The world seems so quietly eager to go to sleep on Christmas Eve. It slips under the dark cover of snow clouds and pulls us all into soft slumber with it. And in the cold still evening, all the lights come on.
They sparkle down the streets, stringing scattered stars between the bare branches of the trees and lining the icy gutters of houses along the way to my home. I love to walk at dusk and watch the town become an unreal art display. It’s Christmas Eve. Where is everyone?
Maybe they’ve gone to sleep with the setting sun. I stand in the middle of the street gazing up into the falling snow. Far away, a bell is ringing. There’s music somewhere. And though the town seems almost deserted, I think I hear someone laughing.
Strange how it always comes back. Year after year, as I get older and change, and forget—it keeps returning. And we fall for it every time—the feeling like something wonderful is about to happen. We string the lights, ring the bells, go to bed early, because, once a year, we can’t wait for tomorrow. We keep looking ahead, counting days, even though counting days only makes us older, brings December to an end, and forces us to face a new year in the dead of winter. But we always do it anyway.
We feel the frosty wind on our faces as the earth turns. And we want it to keep turning. We know something’s coming in the morning. Something that will outlive time. Something that doesn’t depend on our fading memories to keep living in our hearts.
Christmas waits just over the curve of the horizon. It’s just another day in December. But every year, we fall for it.
Somebody said the people who walked in darkness would see a great light. And as I stand in the middle of the frozen street in Dreamscape, staring up into the snow, strange as it seems, I think I see it now.
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM DREAMSCAPE, INDIANA