I wish Christmas was still magical.

It's 10pm on Christmas Eve. I'm doing laundry and in my room on the computer. My dad is watching TV. My mom is in bed because she has the stomach flu. I'm not sure this is all right. In fact, it seems all wrong, to me.

Christmas used to be magical. I used to go to bed on Christmas Eve and wake up (always sometime between 5 and 6 in the morning) to find filled stockings and new presents under the tree and the cinnamon buns my mother had prepared the night before three times their size and ready to be baked...

This year the stockings are already filled. I could walk out into the living room right now and go through mine if I wanted (which I don't). I made the cinnamon buns... and I know exactly what they are going to look like in the morning. Nothing is special. Nothing at all.

All of this boils down to the current personal crisis I'm having with what I like to call "the middle years". This is my term for the ten-some years spent between childhood and having children. I've spent two (nearly three) years in it, and I'm fed up already. I want children... but maybe I don't even need to go that far. Maybe I just want magic back.

So, I went to look for some. Today, I made my friend Grayden come with me to find Christmas miracles. Now, where would one find a Christmas miracle? Well, we started at the obvious place... 34th street. Unfortunately, we found a lot of ugly industrial buildings, warehouses, and refineries. So much for Christmas miracles.

Yet, I'm trying not to let this dampen my spirits. I'll still be up at 6 jumping up and down ready to unwarp gifts... here's hoping I'll rediscover my childhood.

P.S. I know this was terribly written... it's Christmas eve and I just plain don't care.