Last night I took my walk earlier than usual, about 8:00 p.m. I take these walks daily, for the mental and physical exercise. They are short walks, and I try not to let weather deter my discipline. This is my first winter above the Mason-Dixon Line, and it’s cold. Very cold. With the temperature in the low teens and a murderous wind whipping across the neighborhood, I feel as if my sinus cavities have filled with ice. But stubbornly I walk. Properly bundled, I stride briskly up the hill. As I walk past a house with oodles of white Christmas lights strewn about, I see, as I have seen every day since about Halloween, two mechanical reindeer. These are apparently very popular this year, or maybe this is just the first year I’ve noticed: wire-frame reindeer with white lights marking the outline. I find them disturbing, partially because they remind me of those fish in caves that are translucent because they've never been exposed to light. Never. Anyway, these two are not translucent fish; they are wire reindeer, and they're motorized. One reindeer perpetually turns his head from side-to-side while the other lifts and drops his head on an imaginary shrub.

I keep my faster-than-usual walking pace, but my thoughts are now stuck on my irritation about these reindeer and all the millions of lawn ornaments just like them. The next house I pass is completely dark, no lights on whatsoever, Christmas or otherwise. Still mentally ranting, I notice, for the first time, two reindeer in this yard. They look more like statues, and, I opine silently, are probably big and gaudy in the light, but otherwise a refreshing change. They are also positioned too symmetrically for my tastes, each on either side of a large round bush, with bodies contorted in the exact opposite of each other, like photo negatives. As I try to see the statues better, I don't stop but I do slightly slow down. And then I see the third one. And it sees me and leaps across a small hedge into the next yard. As my eyes dart back to the round bush, both lawn ornaments bolt in the direction of the third one. I am stunned, and a huge smile covers my frozen face. I take several steps and can see all three deer standing in the next yard, which fronts another dark house, this one for sale and unoccupied.

They are still moving away but not running. "You are beautiful," I say out loud, completely on reflex. They stop, as a unit, and look at me. I keep walking, slowly, up the hill. The two furthermost from me start to check out the ground around them for food, while the third watches me. They seem to know me and are not afraid. I stand still and offer more greetings. After a few wonderfully long moments, a car turns the corner far down the hill, and the deer disappear.

As soon as I get home, I send a note about the deer to Bill Alexander, a writer and teacher who has been my friend for  many centuries. His response:

This is a Christmas marvel.  As opposed to an X-mas marvel.  Christ, that is - the child who surprises us cynics, whose name could also be Buddha, says "pay attention - beneath the ordinary lurks the sacred.  The sacred breathes and it breathes with your breath, at every moment and when the sacred bounds away, it hasn't left."

And with that I gratefully send warmest Season’s Greetings to all.