A Tradition Worth Starting
A Tradition Worth Starting
Cold Chocolate, Warm Moments
December 6, 2018
The Chicago Express
The Polar Express was a book, then a movie and now it’s an experience.
Amtrak provides its own Polar Express at Chicago’s Union Station and it would make Chris Van Allsburg and Tom Hanks quite proud. And it is probably making them both a little richer as well.
Union Station is all decked out in Polar Express motif with a replica train, Christmas trees, music and other movie memorabilia (most of which you can buy at a conveniently placed pop-up gift shop.)
Then you got on the train (which is actually a regular Amtrak train with a lot of very festive Christmas lights inside) and are entertained by a buoyant, affable conductor who looks quite a bit like Hanks, or it least his animated doppelganger (sounds like him, too) and also dancing hot chocolate servers, singing porters (were they in the movie?) and everyone gets their ticket punched and you even get a sugar cookie and one of Santa’s bells.
The hot chocolate was only about half a cup and it was kind of cold. Remember in the movie the line was “. Never ever, let it cool!”…Life doesn’t always imitate art.
In the movie, the book, and in most every Christmas narrative, Santa is an old fat white guy. On our Polar Express in Chicago Santa, wonderfully, was black and looked like he could run a marathon, not eat a caribou.
The passengers on Chicago’s Polar Express were mostly parents, grandparents and young children so our grouping of four adults was a bit different though we were no less delighted to be living out one of our favorite Christmas traditions.
We declined, however, to wear pajamas and wish some of the other adults had also been so modest.
The kids were all cute as snow, though.
There are few better ways to spend a cold Chicago December night than climbing on a train and into a Christmas dream. Which gets us thinking; what other Christmas tales would you like to step into?
Can you imagine walking the streets of Bedford Falls as George Bailey runs through the falling snow shouting “Merry Christmas!”?
Or how about meeting Holden Caulfield for a drink after he gets off the train?
One of the many reasons A Charlie Brown Christmas lives in our hearts is that we remember those snowy days with our friends and the walks home from school under a winter sky and the snow crunching beneath our feet. We could do far worse than spend forever in a school auditorium on a cold evening in the weeks before Christmas with our friends, our dog, music and a lesson about love and faith.
Cold nights, hot chocolate, train rides, Christmas lights. It’s a good life when you can live it.
And what of that woman we saw on the way to Union Station, huddled up on the street hoping for money? We ignored her on the way there but gave her a dollar on the way back which means we’re so kind and loving and don’t have to feel guilty about anything, right?
The question of The Polar Express, we’re told, isn’t where the train is going but deciding to get on. But what about when you get off the train and the Christmas fantasy ends? The world is still magical. But also cold. And it’s right to take the dream with you, but not to live in it. Or if you do live in a Christmas fantasy make sure to leave the door open. We remind ourselves there needs to be room for everyone. --TK
Thursday, December 6, 2018