After spending a week in Las Vegas, I was more than ready to go home. Instead of gambling or touring the casinos and admiring the splendor of all that man can create with lots of money and imagination, I spent my time caring for two little kids. Their single mom had to work and the preschool they attend was closed for the week. So, I changed diapers and wiped noses and watched kid TV and played in the park and found heart shaped rocks in the gravel. It was the perfect way to spend the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve.
I had a chance to see a little bit of Las Vegas though. One morning we went out for coffee and at the table beside us was a very glammed up mom, mascara smudged and looking weary from a night's work, feeding her two little kids bagels and hoping the coffee she was drinking would be enough to get her through her day.
Even on the strip, where Christmas lights sparkled, there was a weariness, a heaviness. People made up, botoxed, and fake-smiling. Small children misbehaving and paraded around in fancy clothing. Lines of people waiting for Santa photos at the mall.
I had to look closely for Christmas this year. But it did come unexpectedly in the laughter of a young child enjoying her gingerbread cookie. It came in a piece of art I found on a wall and in the heart shaped clouds rising in the distance as we drove out of the city. Love exists in "sin city". You just have to look closely.
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