Magical

photo by Tom

The highly-anticipated lowland snow finally did materialize, but not until it was summoned by Christmas music, first, from the onboard sound system of the pedicab driver as we streamed from Seattle Center after sampling the joys of the surprisingly dangerous Artists at Play playground and then, second, from the glorious pipes of the always effervescent Sugarplum Elves, whose acapella and accordion renditions of holiday favorites like “Santa Baby” and “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” called forth Jack Frost and his meteorological cronies to manifest a genuine December blizzard and turn the front porch of a favorite old dive bar into a veritable winter wonderland, warming the fingers, toes, and most importantly, the hearts of all those lucky enough to witness this latest rendition of a goddamn authentic Christmas miracle, so help me Jeezus.

We followed a fairly vertical route to get there, ascending Queen Anne via a handful of viewpoints, each more spectacular than the next until finally, who gives a shit, and then back down through the Hobo Goat Trail on which I slow-motion endo-ed at exactly the same place I did last time even though this was at the beginning of the evening and not the raw-dog-in-the-butt conclusion of it.

The Elves were in their usual wonderfully naughty-but-nice and nice-but-naughty form and spread holiday cheer both underground and above, augmented magnanimously by a glimmering candelabra of tequila shots courtesy of the Joby Lafkey Corporation; several generations of fans basked in the angelic harmonies and devilish grins of the performers, while also snapping up a whole year of candy-coated joy courtesy of this year’s Elf Calendar, order one here!

As 2016 draws mercifully to a close and we can’t help but reflect back sadly on all that went wrong and was lost, it’s absolutely heartwarming (and essential) to have to have our halls joyfully bedecked with bikes and Sugarplum Elves; it’s the gift that keeps on giving and one we are surely blessed to receive.