Santa Watch

It was the perfect Christmas Eve . . . that is, it was the perfect Christmas Eve for a Santa Watch.  The scene was straight off a Christmas card: crystal clear skies showed off about a billion stars that perfectly complimented the glow-in-the-dark, white snow.  The air was crispy cold, the kind that makes the snow squeak when you walk on it, and makes your nose hairs freeze.  My Dad had hitched the wheel-tractor to a big sled, big enough for two.  The stars, the moon, and the white snow lit the black night so well, you could see that it was a red sled.  The tractor chugged out immense frozen clouds.  Soon he bade me and my cousin, both of us bundled in snowsuits and winter garb until we were squarish, munchkin looking little people, to climb aboard, which we wasted no time in doing.  The Santa Watch was on.
    It was the perfect Christmas Eve for another reason than the star lit night and the bright snowy crunch, another reason better than the postcard setting, better even than the red wooden sled.  It was this year that our faith in Santa Claus was at its height, culminating four years of phantom expectation into bold truth.  I was nearing my 5th birthday and she her 4th.  There was no denying us; Santa was real; and we would see him tonight.
    “Up there.  Look!” Dad shouted.  He pointed into the vast starriness where anything could be. 
    “Where?  Where?  We squealed with excitement and hugged each other. 
    “Up there.”  He waved his arm in the direction of the moon.  “Do you see them? Up there by the third star from the moon, it’s a team of reindeer.  They’re pulling Santa’s sleigh.”
    We looked and looked until the vision materialized.  Sure enough, way up there, in the ring of the moon, we could see the fleeting entourage. 
    “We see him.  We see him!” we both shouted in gleeful unison.  We saw that the sleigh was red.  “Where is he going?  Oh, Santa, don’t leave.”  We nearly fell of our sled in our enthusiasm.
    “Why, I do believe he is coming to our house.  Yes, he’s coming around the back way,” Dad said.  He was very convincing.
    “Oh,” we said in hushed awe.  “Can we go see him?”
    “Well,” Dad said, “he’s probably bringing your presents.  He needs complete privacy for that.  You wouldn’t want to interrupt him bringing your presents, now, would you?
    Well, of course we wouldn’t, and we assured Dad that we most certainly would not want to interrupt him bringing our presents. 
    A few minutes later, Dad said, “Oh, there he goes.  Watch now.  Do you see him?  He’s almost back up to the moon.”
    “Oh, yes.”  And there they were again, the reindeer, pulling the sleigh with Santa in it.  We even imagined we could see the faint glow of Rudolph’s red nose.
    “Can you hear the jingle bells on the sled ringing?” Dad asked.
    We listened intently, with all of our might, lifting our earflaps to hear the sounds more clearly.  And we did hear the bells.  They sounded just like stars might sound if you could hear stars twinkle.  We watched Santa’s sleigh leave like a streak across the sky.  Then they were gone. 
    We heard Dad chuckle as he cranked up the old tractor a little, and the big red sled slid along on the brilliant snow just like the red sleigh in the sky.  We cherished the moment that night, somehow knowing it would not be repeated.  We would treasure the wintry, Christmas scene on greeting cards; but the twinkling of belief, we captured in our hearts.  It was the perfect Christmas Eve.