Strolling State Street in downtown Chicago during the Christmas season is a precious memory. The city traffic swoon is muffled by the snow. Icycles like daggers hang from the light posts. Marshall Field & Co. store window crammed with figurines and miniature trains rivets the imagination.
To a child from suburban Oak Park, the annual excursion to that tangled axis of streetcar, skyscraper, and clamorous dissonance left impressions deep as the snow drifts along the curb.
A big city can seem an inhospitable place to a child, but during Christmas it transformed into a land of enchantment. It must have been that, anticipating the coming of the Christ Child, the hard edge of the markeplace gave way to a child-centered wonderland. Jesus now mattered, and so did wee ones - thousands of people jostled as one joyous family!
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