Lighting Up Trees and Faces This Christmas

For years now, we've made it a tradition to kick off the holiday season with the Fashion Island Tree Lighting Ceremony. It's always the weekend before Thanksgiving and it's always a magical affair. There's the wildly-entertaining Christmas musical performed by students of the California Conservatory of the Arts followed by the much anticipated illumination of Fashion Island's majestic, skyscraping Christmas tree. And, of course, a mob of spectators smashed up against eachother, standing shoulder-to-shoulder out in the cold to watch the show. But, 'tis the season, right?

This year we impressed ourselves by getting there a whole fifteen minutes before showtime. This meant that after much elbowing and apologetic smiling, we found a tiny spot to stand where we could actually see the stage, from the front, no less. Never mind that we were clear across the courtyard over by the Christmas tree, about a football field away from it all. We had a place of our own!

After we'd folded up the stroller and tucked it under the Christmas tree (an unexpected advantage to our location), we tried to settle into our two cubic feet of space. Lil' Miss stood right next to me and looked like a kid lost in the forest. She was encircled by a wall of adults, GIANTS towering over her. The poor girl was trapped with nowhere to go and nothing to look at other than what was at eye level, a row of saggy butts. She looked up at me and I could see the panic setting in. I scooped her up in my arms and that's when it became immediately clear the kids would have to be held THE ENTIRE TIME if we were going to enjoy any of this. I had forgotten about this.

Apparently, the show was running a little late (either that or those fifteen minutes with a forty pound preschooler in my arms just seemed like an eternity). This was not good. Honk and I exchanged "Are we having fun yet?" looks. We still had an entire show to stand through and my arm muscles were already burning. I could practically see the flames under my skin. How was I going to manage this? I needed a new game plan. I hoisted Lil' Miss onto my shoulders to give my arms a rest and Lil' Miss a better view of the stage. I must have looked like some kind of female bodybuilder to the people around us, just grabbing my kid like that and flinging her over my head. This was a nice change from the "weaker vessel" routine I'm usually trying to pull off and use to my advantage.

Finally, the music started and the show began. I sent up a little prayer of thanksgiving. Right away, I knew this was right up Lil' Miss's princess-loving, ballet-dancing, broadway-singing alley. The girl was in her element. She was mesmerized by the whimsical set, elaborate costumes, and impressive performances. Every once in a while she'd yell down to me, "Mom, this is SO beautiful!" Not fun. Not great. Not even cute. BEAUTIFUL. I was going to have to take her word for it. I was not watching the show. I was too busy dying a slow, painful death under the weight of the increasingly heavy child perched on my shoulders. She had been up there for quite a while now and my body wasn't taking this free ride lightly. The agony was almost unbearable. Sharp, piercing pain shot through my shoulders and neck. Muscles I didn't even know I had started to spasm. A continuous burning and throbbing permeated my upper back. I was losing oxygen from the strangled hold my hooded sweatshirt had on my airways. I could feel the hordes of people that surrounded us closing in on me. This was the beginning of the end. Between whimpered cries and futile attempts at pain management, I mapped out the people in the crowd best suited to break my fall when I passed out: definitely big mullet man with goosedown jacket.

But then, out of nowhere, a welcomed diversion. A drama even more dramatic than mine (if you can believe it). A mother had somehow weasled her way through the crowd and parked it right next to us. She was holding a baby in her arms and was accompanied by a little girl about the same age as Lil' Miss who had the same lost-in-the-forest expression on her face. The girl was distraught. She could hear the beautiful music and singing, but couldn't see a smidge of the show. It was too sad for words. "Mama, please! Hold me! Hold me! I can't see! I can't see!" The mother who was already balancing said baby in her arms made little effort. "I can't. I don't know where your dad is. Sorry." The little girl kept begging, pleading with her mom to pick her up but the mother wasn't budging. My heart was breaking.

And that's when the pain in my shoulders and neck completely disappeared. How could I be bothered by a little crink in the neck when a child was being deprived the magic of Christmas? An inner battle raged in my head. The socially-appropriate part of my brain was warning, "Leilen, she is NOT your child. There is nothing you can do about this. Just mind your own business and watch the show!" Unfortunately, that part was being drowned out by a much louder, more obnoxious part of my brain, the part that is convinced the whole universe depends on me, like I'm some kind of superhero to short people.

I tapped the twenty-something man standing in front of us on the shoulder and said, "Hey, there's a little girl behind you who can't see the show and I was wondering if maybe you might ask her mom if you could hold her so she could watch." He looked at me like I'd just asked him to take off his pants and fling them into the crowd. But, good guy that he was, he went ahead and asked her anyways. The mother was happy to accept the generous offer and passed the kid off to him. He lifted the girl up onto his shoulders and I watched as her whole face lit up, instantly beaming at the musical extravaganza before her. It was the most genuinely happy smile I'd ever seen.

I couldn't stop smiling either. It felt great to help make that happen. Sure, it was just a little girl getting to watch the tail end of a Christmas show, but still. It reminded me that making people happy can be pretty simple. It doesn't always require a lot of money, commitment or organ transplants. And it can even make your own pain less noticeable. Come to find out, it just takes a little willingness and a lot of khutspe.