These are the Wings

I’m six years old, and my family and I are driving home from an evening advent service. Baby Michael is asleep. Matthew, at a rambunctious four years, is not. For a tired family in the thick of the holiday season, the shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but my parents know the importance of a detour.

“Let’s visit the fairy land,” my father says, and turns on a side street a few blocks from our house.

The block glows with thousands of bulbous multicolored lights, strung each year by a group of neighbors in the street’s tall California pines. Dad slows the car, and Mom starts singing. We join her: “What a beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight.” And it’s true.

In the life of a family, we might remember holiday activities like opening presents or lighting candles. Those times are memorable, but it’s often the “in-between”…