Perchance to Dream

Imagine the most perfect Christmas scene; a toy train running on tracks under a Christmas tree,
candles burning, pine cones and cut wood, lights, snowflakes and hot cocoa, gifts wrapped flawlessly. This scene could exist only in your imagination, in your dreams, maybe a Hollywood set, but not in real life, right?Maybe, yet here it was, right in front of us. We were walking by that tree, sitting on that couch, holding that hot cocoa and seeing that train roll by on the soft rug at our feet. Rai, you too, looked around in wonder, eyes wide as perfectly dressed, well-behaved children ran around laughing. And, they ran right towards Santa Claus, who sat on a throne-like chair by the Christmas tree.
Was this real or some dream? I looked over at the window, the name of the store could be seen, written backwards from our perspective: Maison Reve, the 'dream house'. Or, is it the house of dreams?
Auntie Ewa had let us know that this antique shop which she had fallen in love with when visiting us two summers ago, was having a Christmas event. " As I will not be able to be there, maybe you can go and enjoy it for me," she had written, "Santa, hot cocoa, organic snow cones.....what could be finer? It was fine, yet I felt so out of place. Maybe I'm not one who is accustomed to the finer things in life. It's odd that we live in one of the most affluent cities on Earth yet it is so rare that I find myself in this kind of situation. What I mean is, it is rare that we visit or spend time in places or activities that could be considered upper middle class. There are plenty of stores like this one in the city, yet we rarely go shopping and if we do it's always at Goodwill. There are plenty of nice restaurants, yet we stick to our cheap, neighborhood joints. There are plenty of incredible homes and glamorous hotels, yet we never step inside them. And now, a Christmas scene that is nothing out of the ordinary in terms of my upbringing and made incredibly familiar in film, feels so unfamiliar, and alien even. How I got from a place in my life where this kind of holiday scene was completely normal to this place in my life where this scene feels so distant and unreal leaves me puzzled. Something to think about and a very special way to begin the holiday season and prepare for little Kotaru's first Christmas. I snapped myself out of my daze, looking out the window again, at the old-fashioned truck parked out front. Why not get a snow cone and just enjoy the dream while we have the chance?