in the spirit

So we went to Ledoux Street last night, and it was raining. Never seen rain here in December, and it turned Ledoux into more of a LeDon't. All the luminaria bags got soaked and the candles went out. Quite sad really. The whole town looks forward to this, and a lot of people do a lot of work to make it happen. We stayed about ten minutes, and decided it was too "Seattle" for us, so we walked through the plaza and across the street to the Taos Inn, for the lighting of the Christmas Tree.


That was predictably wonderful, and we somehow lucked into the best seats in the house, and ran into some friends too. Then it started snowing. Yes! This was more like it.


My favorite part of the entire evening was when I was outside with my little three-year-old neighbor, looking at the team of rustic, folk art log reindeer. They were almost as tall as he was, and he kept pointing to them and saying, "It's the Cwithmas Sthpiwit." Huh? The little circle of wooden deer was the Christmas Spirit? Well... OK then. Then he said, "I wanna get in!" Huh?, says me again... You wanna get in? OH! You wanna get in the Christmas Spirit! (Yay me! I cracked the code!) Giddy as a three-year-old on hot chocolate, I picked him up and set him inside the ring of reindeer, magically transporting both of us to The Christmas Spirit. Kids know a thing or two.

So, today we decorated our own little Christmas Tree, and then went to town to see the local violin school kids perform. Yes, I still want a violin. I might wait until we're in Oregon, when I theoretically will have some actual time to play it. But these kids have me all kinds of inspired. They're so good. And so real and sweet and just having fun. Not too serious, that's the way I want to go at it too. Again, I'm learning from the kids. Here's a video I got at the end of the concert. We know one of the girls in the middle (Hi Laura! Great job!), so we had sort of an excuse to go. But the truth is, we would have gone even if we didn't know any of them.



And now, since I'm on a roll, I'm going to go bake some cookies. HoHoHo!