With only days left until the most celebrated holiday of the year, my guess is your house is just about as busy as mine. Last minute buying and baking, cleaning and cooking! I’ve been trying to watch some of my favorite Christmas moves, like It’s A Wonderful Life and White Christmas but to avoid feeling guilty watching movies I can fairly quote line by line I’ve had them on in the background while I bake cookies or wrap presents. Double duty!
I hope you’re able to pause long enough to mark some memories before they all become a blur. For me, one of the best memories of this season was a trip to the Chicago Loop to see a theatrical rendition of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. It’s not A Christmas Carol or a more traditional Christmas play, but this was absolutely fantastic. 
If you haven’t read this book by Mark Haddon, you’re missing a treat. It’s a remarkable novel written from the point of view of an autistic teenager who discovers a neighbor’s dog has been killed. With single-minded focus only someone with such a capacity for this kind of focus, he sets out to investigate. The case leads him in very unexpected directions, and for the reader (or in this case the audience) it’s a path that’s both funny and piquant, but also a peek into what it must feel like to live within and with a brain that sees absolutely everything. It’s a sort of Extra Sensory Perception, but not in the classic sense of the phrase. Rather it’s a sensory experience that goes beyond what the rest of of see or feel or hear.
It was an amazing book and an amazing production, so if you get the chance to read the book or see the play, don’t miss it!
The entire day was special to me, since I spent it with loved ones out to enjoy the season. We had lunch at an Irish pub (if you can’t find one in Chicago, you can’t find one anywhere!) then visited the Kris Kringle Mart where we saw pigeons warming 
themselves by the eternal flame, saw the big tree in Marshall Field’s (okay, so technically it’s been Macy’s for years, but I still can’t call the State Street store anything else, especially this time of the year) and had dessert at the Magnolia Bakery. I refuse to count calories this time of the year, though I’m sure I’ll be paying for it in January.
May this Christmas memory inspire you to create a special day of your own this season! Merry Christmas!
