Well, that was different.  Thanksgiving this year looked, we’ll just say, unfamiliar.  For my family, and undoubtedly many families to be sure, it is traditionally a day that is consumed with eating, drinking, inappropriate humor and a general sense of merriment.   It is a day of reflection that is spent feeling thankful and grateful for the people and the things that we hold most dear.  Above any other day of the year, it is a day that we dig deep and actually use our words to pay homage to our blessings.  But this year was different courtesy of the uninvited and unanimously unwelcome guest, also known as the virus, who decided to pull up a chair at dining room tables everywhere and stay, forcing us to give our thanks from a safe distance.  However, with or without the virus and while Thanksgiving is a full day of food and spirit, for better or for worse and like it or not, it is also often considered to be a catalyst; a moment in time when we look forward to the days ahead that will ultimately close out one year only to ring in anew as the clock strikes midnight.  We celebrate this ritualistic orbital gift annually as we go to sleep in one year and wake up the very next day to a fresh start, a new lease, as the new year provides new opportunities that hopefully do not need to include masks, hand sanitizer or extra toilet paper. Yet even amidst the chaos and uncertainty of this past year, it is still nearly impossible to not get caught up in the excitement of the holiday season.  Driving around seeing the festive town and lawn displays, twinkling lights adorning entire front porches, cheerful songs that are so irresistible that even those who align themselves more with the Grinch or Scrooge can sometimes be heard joining in for a chorus or two.  The magical and mischievous Elves on the Shelves and all of their nightly shenanigans.  For anyone with the younger variety of children in the house, the Christmas wish lists that go through multiple revisions until they are ready to be viewed by the jolly man with the white beard and red suit who will make the ultimate determination on their nice vs. naughty status throughout the course of the past year.  It is a flurry of constant movement and purpose as we do our best to make memories for our children filled with the magic and wonder that nostalgically transports us back to our own childhood holiday memories. Magic. A sleight of hand.  Optical illusions.  The skillful and covert trickery that parents partake in each year in order to create, in a single day, the holiday memories that their children will hopefully carry with them for a lifetime.  With more frequency and a heightened sense of urgency, we find ourselves harkening back to the days of our youth, as we oscillate between remaking holiday traditions that we grew up with while simultaneously inventing a few of our own.  Once a year, we dust ourselves off and sweep away the cobwebs to give our imaginations permission to shine.  As we are quickly reminded that the build-up of excitement is a much-needed contagion that we catch from our children.  A welcome crescendo of chaos that is at the same time both dizzying and bittersweet.   We rely on movies and books, past and present, to be our unshakeable guides while we navigate new terrain as our children get older and quietly tiptoe through the field of believability.   We become like a scene inside a snow globe.  As long as we continue to shake the globe and make it snow, the scene inside the globe comes back to life again. As far back as our own memories will take us, maybe we remember brief moments when our breath was taken away after witnessing an awe-inspiring act of something unbelievably miraculous, mysterious and, yes, magical.  Whether it was a death-defying circus performance or a magic trick with a deck of cards, those moments when we are left to wonder if our eyes, like the cards, are playing tricks on us.  Because magic does not always present itself in those abracadabra moments like when a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat.  Sometimes – most times – magic is found when and where it is least expected.  And the magic of the holiday season is no exception.  Albert Einstein is quoted as having said, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.  It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.  He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.”  And that is true whether you are talking about a flying reindeer or global warming in the same sentence.  Just because you don’t see it with your own eyes doesn’t make it less true.  It begs the question:  at what pivotal point in our lives do we cease believing in what would otherwise be considered unbelievable?  When did we become so cynical that our sense of wonder and hope for miracles become nothing more than an unattainable pipe dream? A child’s imagination is boundless when it is fostered and given the opportunity to flourish.  That is a fact that would be difficult to disprove.  Albert Einstein said, “The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”   And although that may very well be true, Albert Einstein’s theorization on relativity did not include games like Space Invaders or Journey to the Savage Planet.   We do not need a game to tell us that there are stars in the sky.  All we need to do is look up and see them for ourselves.  But the other truth that cannot be easily dismissed is that children today are spending less and less …