Windows into Christmas

I had nuns for teachers. Not the nice ones mind you, the ones who carried a ruler with as much piety as they carried a rosary. They wore pure white whimples and light brown sandals and insisted on teaching me my prayers and force-feeding me my fears. I remember once being told to kneel in "reflective silence" because God loved me so much that he died for me at precisely 3 pm.

It'll be precisely 3 pm in 10 minutes and I'm on Bay Street staring into Hudson Bay's display windows. Today they're filled with mannequins advertising a fashion label that I can't quite remember now. Today we're in September 2006. It'll be Christmas in 87 days and these same windows will be turned out in style, bedecked with presents in brightly colored paper, twinkling ribbons and toys. The windows will be frosted with painted snowflakes, a smart little train will choo-choo around its tracks and the puppets will kick and dance with the magic of "The Season." And in that mess of toys, beaming Santas and confetti snow, against a backdrop of oohing and ahhing adults, it'll come back to me that a babe was born on that hallowed day, that he grew up and died at precisely 3 pm and that I think these shop windows look much prettier than the nativity scenes at church.