Christmas Wishes for the Holiday

It's only the 21st, but tonight was our family Christmas. It's kind of a family holiday as opposed to a religious one, but we're religious about family, if that makes any sense. 

Today was a wonderful Christmas. It was ghost white and dead cold. We have a ton of snow, very few people are out on the roads and it was below zero with a -40º windchill. Yikes! 

Which gets me to my own personal Christmas wish, which was quite small, and huge at the same time. See, I live downtown in a city condo. But I miss the bird-feeder full of birds, as I'm used to from my previous woodsy home on the river, and the home I grew up in. 

But my family decided to give it a try –– a bird feeder that is -- even though the only thing we see is pigeons. We put it up in October, and it sat there untouched for a couple of months, but then one day, shortly after the first snowfall, we found the only 2 non-pigeons in St. Paul. It was a pair of house-finches (I think), which we saw sitting in the trees just off our stoop. 

For a while, they weren't eating the seeds, or at least we weren't sure. Then suddenly there were little piles of cracked seed casings on the ground. It was a couple of weeks before we actually saw them at the feeder, but it's become a regular spectacle for the family to watch our two birds, who flutter around the trees outside our window every day. Always two, a female and a male, and never more.

As I'd said, last night was cold. Nearly fifty below with windchill. You could feel it in the walls. Cold. In the morning, today, I found myself wondering where the little birds went to stay warm on a night like that. I looked out the window, and there was only one bird. Just the female. At first I didn't think much of it, but by noon I worried if the male had possibly succumbed to the cold. The thought weighed heavy on me. 

Today was our family Christmas. There was great food, and presents by our fire. But I couldn't get the little bird out of my head. I kept glancing out the window, to see only the one bird puffed out for warmth, sitting on the branch where they've always been together. 

I thought about how happy I was with my wonderful family. How grateful I was for my older son's health (he comes with a rare genetic condition that brings many questions and worries, so I have much to be grateful about with that one). How thrilled I am with my own health (having had a cancer scare this summer which turned out to be okay). How filled with joy between my two kids and loving wife,all of us healthy, not to mention the freedom I enjoy owning my own film business and professional speaking business which allow me to control my own life, more or less, as I live loudly outside the velvet cage I used to live within.

But this year, my only Christmas wish seemed to be that the male bird return and that my two little finches would sit again together on their branch by our feeder. It's all I wanted. 

I wished... or prayed... or manifested... whatever you prefer. I imagined looking out and seeing the two together, cracking seeds against the cherry wood. I felt a grateful feeling in my heart and I tried to trust that it would come to pass.

Still, I checked every 5 minutes for the next 3 hours. Always the one. Never the two. 

My wife needed to run to the store, so I drove her. She was making a mexican dinner, so I drove her down to Concord and Robert, where a little Mexican village hubs at a very local market called El Burrito Mercado, where very little English is spoken, and Kim and I would likely be the only non-hispanic people there. I wanted to surprise Kim with her favorite desert, so I bought it and got in line while Kim was still busy in the isles. 

As I stood in line, this beautiful little girl, maybe 7 years old or so, started speaking to me in Spanish and I had no idea what she was saying. I say beautiful not in the "heartbreaker" sort of way when you see some young child who's destined to be a future knockout. I mean it in a different way, that this girl was so full of pure joy that she was possibly the most beautiful thing I think I've ever seen. It wouldn't have mattered who it was, what age or what gender. If only more people could embody the kind of innocent joy this girl showed. If only the world could all be that beautiful, in specifically that way! 

I noticed that the little hispanic girl was holding the very same cake that I had, and I figured out what she was talking about. "Tres Leche," I said with a smile... one of the five or so things I can say in Spanish. "Si! Tres Leche," she said, and we laughed.

We exchanged a few words, and neither of us understood, yet both of us completely understood. She was soon joined with her mom who hugged her with as much joy as the little girl showed. A loving family. No surprise. As I paid for my cake, I spotted a small vase of flowers and bought a rose along with my cake and gave it to the little girl (with permission from her mom, which I acquired non-verbally). 

"Felice Navidad!" I said kindly as I handed the little girl the flower. She took the flower with the biggest, roundest eyes I'd ever seen. She smiled so big I never would have believed it given how joyful she already was on her own. Her mom hugged her again as she smiled at me, after whispering something in the little girl's ear in Spanish. "Thank you," the little girl said, in English, and we parted.

I left the marcado feeling so warm inside and grinning ear to ear. As Kim and I ate our "three milk" cake, I couldn't wait to get home and finish Christmas with my boys. And I couldn't help but notice that I was as happy about having added joy to this random little girl's afternoon as I was happy about spending this wonderful holiday with my own loving family. I thought, "My family... some immigrant family. What's the difference? My kids joy opening their gifts... some little girl's joy receiving a flower at the market... what's the difference?" I think there is none.

We arrived back into the condo parking ramp and returned to our home. It was nearly dark and the kids were itching to get to present opening. I told them to get ready and I'd be right there. I had to take one more quick look outside my window.

To my joy, there were my two little finches, sitting together as they had for weeks. The male had returned! I closed the blinds and told the kids I was ready for gifts. 

My younger son asked me if I was excited to open presents, and I told him, "Yes! Of course I am. It's always fun to open gifts, but I only had one wish this Christmas, and it already came true."