Sleighing

At four-o-clock at the Davis-Shai House in Heath, Ohio there will be a Victorian style Christmas celebration featuring caroling, Santa Claus, and horse-drawn carriages. This last one was the main reason I wanted to go, and although I won't be able to attend tonight, I hope to in the future.

The idea of going on a sleigh ride began to sound glamorous after I read Time and Again by Jack Finney. It is a story about a man who uses his mind to go back in time 80 years (similar to the way it is done in Somewhere in Time). He holes up in the Dakota in New York behaving as a man would have during his target time period. One night, success.

“Downstairs I walked out of the building, glancing quickly around, but saw not a soul—tonight I didn’t want to see anyone—and I turned toward Central Park just across the street ahead. It was a fine night, a wonderful night. The air was sharp in my lungs, and snowflakes occasionally caught in my lashes, momentarily blurring the streetlamps just ahead, already misty in the swirls of snow around them.

“Just ahead the street was almost level with the curbs, unmarked by steps or tracks of any kind...

“I plodded on just a little way more though, feet lifting high, boots clogged by damp snow, enjoying the exercise of it, exhilarated by the feel of the snowy luminous night, and my aloneness in it. Behind me and to the north I heard a distant rhythmical jingle, perceptible louder each time it sounded, and I turned to look back toward the street once again. For a moment or two I stood listening to the jink-jink-jingle around, and then just beyond the silhouetted branches, down the center of the lighted street, there it came, the only kind of vehicle that could move on a night like this: a light, airy, one-seated sleigh drawn by a single

slim horse trotting easily and silently through the snow. The sleigh had no top; they sat out in the falling snow, bundled snugly together under a robe, a man and a woman passing jink-jink-jingle through the snow-swirled cones of light under each lamp. They wore fur caps like mine, and the man held a whip and the reins in one hand. The woman was smiling, her face tilted t receive the snow, and the sounds were the bells, the muffled hoof-clops, and the hiss of the sleigh runners. Then their backs were to me, the sleigh drawing away, diminishing, the steady rhythm of the sleigh bells receding. They were nearly gone when I heard the woman laugh momentarily, her voice muffled by the falling snow, the sound distant and happy.”

We've been getting a lot of snow here in central Ohio lately, and there is something really cool about the stillness of a freshly fallen pile of snow. It insulates the noise so you don't hear the severity of the noise of traffic or of people walking around or animals milling around. I would never want the world to be that quiet all of the time, but it is nice every now and then. 

RADIO: Cinnamon Bear “Oliver Ostrich”, Jump Jump and the Ice Queen “Captured by Ice Dwarves”, Jonathan Thomas and his Christmason the Moon “Saving the Elf King”

MOVIE: I watched a cute Christmas movie today that I'd never heard of until this year. It's called Beyond Tomorrow and although it meanders a bit, it is overall an enjoyable film that fans of classic movies should see. 

On Christmas Eve, three elderly men are stood up at their own dinner party, so they make a bet that there is surely a lonely stranger out there who wants to have dinner with them. They decide to lure their guest by throwing three wallets with ten dollars each onto the snow outside of their house. Whoever comes to return the wallet(s) is invited in. Two of the three wallets are returned, by a man and woman who have no plans for the evening. They become attracted to each other and the three men do their best to ensure the couple's future happiness, even after they're gone.  

SONG: “Sleigh Ride” KT Tunstall

CHRISTMAS MEMORY: One of my favorite things from my childhood was our Commodore 64. My dad, sister, and I bonded so much over that antiquated but amazing machine. At Christmastime, my dad would load a program that played Christmas carols and showed primitive scenes, some of which were animated. We were fascinated by how cool our computer was and that it could actually illustrate the music we were hearing. By today's standards, we were living in the Stone Age, but I geeked out when I found Youtube videos of the demos used to sell these programs. The one I remember most was a group of kids throwing snowballs at each other and hiding behind walls. Unfortunately, I couldn't find that one, but here is a medley of some of the scenes we had.