Ryan Trares: Santa Claus can arrive in a holiday dream

Visions of sugar plums danced in his head.

We haven’t even been to Thanksgiving yet and Anthony is already literally dreaming about Christmas.

As we were getting ready for school on the last day before vacation, he shared with me his very vivid dream. He set the stage – it was Christmas morning and he had come down to find out what Santa had left him.

He crawled down the steps and managed to catch St. Nick leaving presents.

“Good thing that was a dream,” I said. “If Santa catches you sneaking around late looking for presents, it’s all money for you.”

Anthony gave me a withering look and then continued.

Apparently he got all the things on his list – a good omen, he thought. The only downside was that his dream self woke up just as he was in the middle of digging through his stocking.

“I didn’t even see what I had there!” he said in desperation.

The Christmas dream was just the latest sign that we have fully arrived at the Christmas season. If there was any doubt before, even after “All I Want for Christmas” was on the radio and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” was on TV, there is none now.

We spent last Saturday getting the interior decorations out of the garage to place around the house. Out came the glowing trees, animatronic dancing snowmen and gingerbread man garland. We set up the large artificial tree for the front window (we’re getting the live tree for the kitchen this weekend) and went through boxes of decorative items to put on our favorite pieces.

Anthony has amassed a collection of decorations of his favorite cartoon characters over the years: Peter Pan, Mickey Mouse, Charlie Brown, Baby Yoda. This year I bought him a copy of The Nightmare Before Christmas as a memento of a film that he says is now one of his favorite Halloween AND Christmas movies.

They all had to go to a very specific place that Anthony made up in his head.

The next day we took a trip to the Carmel Christkindlmarkt, a tourist attraction north of Indianapolis that was designed to resemble a German Christmas market. We drank hot chocolate, bought authentic European sweets and listened to Christmas carols played by alphorn players.

Just like Anthony, we are all ready for the holiday season. A late Thanksgiving and busy travel schedule limits the best month of the year, making it essential to squeeze everything in when we can.

In the past, Thanksgiving has been the solid boundary between seasons for me. That has waned over the last few years, and this year I’m already managing to deck the halls.

I’m grateful that I have people who I enjoy being involved with.

Ryan Trares is a senior reporter and columnist for the Daily Journal. Send comments to (email protected).