One Chicago tradition is the CTA holiday train. It's a dedicated set of el cars that's permanently tricked out for the holidays with a special flatbed car added for Santa and his sleigh. From Thanksgiving until just before Christmas it takes turns running on the various lines with Santa stopping at certain stations for photo ops. Needless to say, kids love it.
I am obsessed with the holiday train. After hearing about it for years, I accidentally caught it home from work last year. It was a transcendent experience. The decorations, the music, the CTA workers dressed as elves and passing out candy canes. People being nice to each other. That's right. Total strangers. Being friendly and cheerful. On public transportation.
If children love the holiday train, adults (ME) go absolutely fucking nuts for it. After weeks of longingly perusing the CTA timetables and trying to coerce Bruce into dragging the kids out on a weekend for no reason, I finally caught the train on its last day of operation for the season, on the Yellow Line Skokie Swift. Normally, this is a two-car, two train shuttle that simply runs back and forth between Chicago and Skokie. A third stop is being added for later next year. As such, the normal holiday train was split in two and Santa forewent his sleigh and rode with the plebes.
The commuting public went wild. I mean, my ride last year was great. Everyone on my car was laughing and chatting, taking pictures with their phones and generally being gleeful. Add close proximity to Santa to the mix and you get, as one mother said to her kid, "These grown-ups are more excited about this than you are." Grey-haired, grey-suited businessmen were giggling like schoolgirls. Hipsterfied twenty somethings stopped pretending everything was so over for 15 minutes and were snapping photos like the paparazzi. And posing for them too. Have you ever willingly handed you $400 phone to a stranger on the train? No, that is stupid. You will never see that phone again. This happened approximately one million times last night. A sullen looking girl with a half dozen hoops through her lip pushed her phone at me and grunted, "Take me with Santa?" Of course I did and she reciprocated for me.
I could have ridden that holiday shuttle back and forth all night long but I had to go home since I don't think "reliving childhood wonderment" is a valid excuse to ignore your children. So instead I waited for my bus in the chilly drizzle and as everyone else got picked up and I continues to wait, I started to cry. Why? I'm not entirely sure. Maybe I was sad because I missed finding Christmas joy to be that easy to come by. Maybe it was because that easy joy on the holiday train makes everyday life outside of it seem so hard. Maybe it was because while I enjoyed the cheer from all those strangers, I would have really liked to have shared those feelings with my family too. And not just Bruce and Calder and Wren. But my whole family, who are once again more than 600 miles away from me for Christmas.
I am obsessed with the holiday train. After hearing about it for years, I accidentally caught it home from work last year. It was a transcendent experience. The decorations, the music, the CTA workers dressed as elves and passing out candy canes. People being nice to each other. That's right. Total strangers. Being friendly and cheerful. On public transportation.
If children love the holiday train, adults (ME) go absolutely fucking nuts for it. After weeks of longingly perusing the CTA timetables and trying to coerce Bruce into dragging the kids out on a weekend for no reason, I finally caught the train on its last day of operation for the season, on the Yellow Line Skokie Swift. Normally, this is a two-car, two train shuttle that simply runs back and forth between Chicago and Skokie. A third stop is being added for later next year. As such, the normal holiday train was split in two and Santa forewent his sleigh and rode with the plebes.
The commuting public went wild. I mean, my ride last year was great. Everyone on my car was laughing and chatting, taking pictures with their phones and generally being gleeful. Add close proximity to Santa to the mix and you get, as one mother said to her kid, "These grown-ups are more excited about this than you are." Grey-haired, grey-suited businessmen were giggling like schoolgirls. Hipsterfied twenty somethings stopped pretending everything was so over for 15 minutes and were snapping photos like the paparazzi. And posing for them too. Have you ever willingly handed you $400 phone to a stranger on the train? No, that is stupid. You will never see that phone again. This happened approximately one million times last night. A sullen looking girl with a half dozen hoops through her lip pushed her phone at me and grunted, "Take me with Santa?" Of course I did and she reciprocated for me.
I could have ridden that holiday shuttle back and forth all night long but I had to go home since I don't think "reliving childhood wonderment" is a valid excuse to ignore your children. So instead I waited for my bus in the chilly drizzle and as everyone else got picked up and I continues to wait, I started to cry. Why? I'm not entirely sure. Maybe I was sad because I missed finding Christmas joy to be that easy to come by. Maybe it was because that easy joy on the holiday train makes everyday life outside of it seem so hard. Maybe it was because while I enjoyed the cheer from all those strangers, I would have really liked to have shared those feelings with my family too. And not just Bruce and Calder and Wren. But my whole family, who are once again more than 600 miles away from me for Christmas.
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