Letter on Christmas

What do you do with children? They like swimming pools, animals, and ice cream. And so my family has traveled to "Crystal Springs," a massive hotel in a town called Hamburg, NJ.

My son thinks that Santa is the creepy man in the adjoining room, whose voice we can hear throughout the day. My daughter's favorite activity is to give "magic water" to her parents, who immediately fall asleep. This happens again and again.

At the "animal viewing," an enthusiastic young person waves toads and snakes in my face. This young person makes me think of the sort of expert who would sometimes appear on Letterman: "Dave, I'd like you to meet my chimp!" The animal experts always seem to be bubbling over with joie de vivre. They seem to understand something about life that the rest of us may miss.

My daughter blithely declares that she fears nothing--this is her favorite refrain. She gives a "high five" to Fred the Frog. She strokes the scales of "Midnight," a snake who eats other snakes.

This is all a big step up from "the Great Wolf Lodge," in the Poconos. And so we're all learning important things at the end of this crazy year.

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