My first encounter with Christmas magic was electric. It happened the year that the racetrack at the top of my list appeared under the tree. For weeks, slot cars chasing each other at lightning pace filled Saturday morning commercials and my elementary school imagination. The promise of speed and power now in my hands, I proudly snapped the set of plastic curves and metal rails into a misshapen oval. When I mashed the handheld throttle, the racecars leaped to life — it was like a miracle.
It was frustrating, too, because they didn’t stay on, always flying off at the first bend. Before long, my father knelt down to explain the cars and controls, evening out the interlocking sections while walking through the mechanics of keeping the race on track for a full lap. A picture of the scene is in a family photo album — his face asking for patience and mine unable to contain the excitement to play with my Christmas wish. By midmorning, I was a pro. But by the afternoon, I was bored — the cars just went around in circles, stuck racing in a loop to nowhere.
I came across the photo in my childhood home last week and remembered feeling disappointed that the toy didn’t do more. It was unseasonably warm on my visit, and fewer houses seemed to be decorated than I remember. There was less holiday music in the stores, more people gathered in places other than shopping centers. The season’s spirit has felt flatter this year, and my hope was that a trip home would refresh the spark. December’s religious celebrations and the winter solstice’s deep night have long symbolized renewal and transformation. But the mood this year is of a worried people. According to a November poll, 46 percent of Americans were concerned about affording or finding gifts, and 41 percent expected more holiday stress this year than last, up from 28 percent in 2024.
We are a nation wary of its uncertain course and preoccupied with simply holding things together.
The holiday season is usually the calendar’s crescendo, highlighted by time with family and friends and gift exchanges as mutual signs of gratitude and appreciation. For children, it fuels a sense of wonder and possibility. For adults, even amid the stress and changes, it can be rejuvenating, offering optimism and resolve for the year ahead. For our society, the traditions and rituals carry meaning across generations and link us together. Its commercial nature can distract from its social purpose and civic utility, but Christmas remains the nation’s favorite holiday and a fitting way to mark the end of another trip around the sun.
Traveling home wasn’t just a search for tidings of good cheer — my father was having a relatively minor heart procedure to correct an arrhythmia. Though it was outpatient, the treatment’s use of anesthesia and electricity meant he’d require assistance getting to the hospital and around the house for a day or so. After the procedure’s successful completion, the nurse reviewed the discharge instructions with me, his limits on activity and the signs warning that his recovery may be off track. Once back at home with my father still a little groggy, I helped him inside, walked him through everything the nurse said and explained how they used high-voltage shocks to resync the heart’s beat. As we sat and talked, the picture from decades ago of him and me hovered over slot cars flashed in my head, but with the roles reversed — the son helping the father, the circle of life.
I hung around for a couple of days, and we laughed and reminisced about the times when the house was full every Christmas morning. There were additional racetrack sections in my gift years ago that made the cars crisscross, climb the wall and speed around banked corners. That made things more challenging — it was far more difficult to keep the track even and the cars from flying off. But it also made completing a lap more rewarding.
By the morning after Christmas, I was a pro again, zipping the cars around the newly intricate course I’d designed with my father’s help. Every lap was a small victory. After a while, I became so deft in managing the speed and power in my hands that the cars completed so many uninterrupted trips around the electrified circuit that they produced a metallic scent; it was like lightning in the air.
My dad’s clean bill of health brought our visit to an end. We hugged and said our goodbyes as usual, but he held on for a couple of seconds longer than usual before thanking me for the care and company, “It means more to me than you will ever know.” It’s the best present I could’ve given him, and it made my latest encounter with Christmas magic electric, too.
Much of life is beyond our control; we don’t know what waits around the bend. Successfully making it through another uninterrupted lap around the calendar is a miracle all its own.
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