The Polar Express and Me: An Anniversary

Every year since Chris Van Allsburg's book The Polar Express was published in 1985, the book has been read aloud either by my father or by me on Christmas Eve night. Tonight marked the 25th time this has been done. I only pull the book out once a year, on this night. The need to do this seeps into me gently, like an angel spreading her loving kindness throughout my being.

I know there are recordings of the book, read by the likes of William Hurt and Liam Neeson. I know there is a rather prominent film of The Polar Express that was directed by Robert Zemeckis and starred Tom Hanks, or more accurately, his computerized likeness. I daren't see the film or hear any other voice read the book. To do so would allow the magic I feel every year to be polluted, and then disappear completely. The Polar Express, as I understand it, is a sacred entertainment.

Van Allsburg writes of the most magical sound in the world: "the ringing bells of Santa's sleigh". The sound it makes is entirely what you imagine it to be. To me, it is a sound not of this world, but a celestial, ethereal trill. And all who believe in Santa Claus hear the sound and lock it away, in the safest place in their hearts. As adults, we get jaded, we get cynical about Christmas. The two worst words a child can hear, at least in my view, are "Christmas Shopping". When a child hears those words, Christmas stops being about what it was meant to be. It becomes about buying the shiniest diamond, the biggest television, making the best ham or baked Alaska. A child deserves so many Christmases, unchecked by worldly concerns and anguishes.

"Though I've grown old, " Van Allsburg concludes his book, "The bell rings for me as it does for all who truly believe." If I'm still reading his masterpiece twenty-five years after its publication, a very strong case could be made that I believe in Santa Claus. And I believe I always will.