Semi Christmas

When I was a little girl, I thought semi trucks decorated themselves for Christmas.

I rarely saw semis, especially at night, because they stuck to the highways and we never went anywhere on the highway at night. Except for once a year. Christmas Eve.

Every Christmas Eve, we traveled to my grandparents' farm a little over an hour away from where we lived. Tables were loaded with food, the aunts and uncles played pinochle while the cousins all ran around in the upstairs bedrooms, and we sang Stille Nacht in German around the aluminum Christmas tree.

After our gifts (each cousin got a $5 bill, which really adds up when there are 25 of you), my family would pile back into the car and head home. In the dark, I pressed my face to the window to look for Rudolph. Even though my mom said they were planes, I was frequently convinced that I was really seeing Rudolph's nose blinking in the sky. I was sure that was the year I would finally see Santa.

And that was the only time I saw semis at night. At no other time of the year did I see them with all their lights around the perimeter of the back. So every Christmas Eve, I saw the decorated trucks and wished we could decorate our car with lights around the back. I don't remember how old I was when I finally saw a night-time semi at a time other than Christmas Eve, but I do remember asking my mom why the truck driver hadn't taken the lights down yet.

Now that I'm an adult, I see semis at night, all year round. And every time, I think of Christmas. And today, on the way home from work, on the interstate and surrounded by semis all lit up with red lights, I was pretty sure I saw Rudolph up in the sky, too.