Redemption

Luke knows that every once in a while, he has to do something really cute to redeem himself from his day's/week's/month's behavior. On Friday night, he pulled something out of his bag of tricks that redeemed a year's worth of mishaps.

We headed out to the city of Windcrest for their annual City of Lights display. It was so completely Texan in that these folks really go over the top with their Christmas decorations. And the fact that so much of the town participates makes it a really marvelous spectacle. We were awed by so many of the themes and ideas carried out. One house had a giant UFO crashed into a tree and green martians all over the lawn with a sign that said "Have an Out of This World Christmas". The craftsmanship was spectacular. One house had its lights synchronized with a local Christmas radio station, a la the Transsiberian Orchestra lights display video we've all seen on YouTube a hundred times.

One house had Santa Claus standing at the end of the driveway. Cars would stop and roll down the windows so that the passengers could speak to him. Luke has had a longstanding rivalry with the man in red, but he decided he really blew it at the squadron children's Christmas party, and has been asking me for a week, several times per hour, "Is Santa not scary?" A week's worth of reassurance must have given wee Luke all the courage he needed, because as we got closer, he said he wanted to talk to Santa. Joe and I looked at each other with skepticism. We asked him what he wanted to tell Santa. We couldn't believe his answer.

When our turn came, Joe rolled down the back window. Luke stared at Santa, sizing him up, eyes as big as saucers. It took a minute to remember what he was supposed to be telling Santa, but he finally spit the words out. "I want a hippopotamus for Chwissmiss."

We all had a good laugh, and as we drove off, Luke started sobbing. "Would you HOLD ME?!?!?" he repeated over and over, frantically. Poor little guy used all the courage he had to ask Santa for a hippopotamus for Christmas.

Bugger--now we have less than a week to go out and find Luke some sort of hippo, or else he'll never speak to Claus again!