Mukilteo Musings

Seattle Christmas


St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral on top of Capitol Hill--visible from all of Seattle

Yesterday, we did our annual downtown shopping trip. We eat either lunch or dinner at a nice restaurant, finish a little shopping, and hit the major hotel lobbies. The lobby of the Sheraton is decorated with huge ginger bread houses and the Olympic Hotel has a suite decorated with bears every year. We are not the only family who does this. I had trouble getting lunch reservations. On the way downtown, my kids always say, "I wonder who we will run into this year?" because we always see people we know.


Downtown from I-5 on the way yesterday

This may be a big city but when you shop downtown at Christmas, we become the intimate community we are. As we shopped we wished Lucas's high school orchestra teacher Merry Christmas as he rushed down the sidewalk. Kaley's middle school English teacher nodded to us in a busy crosswalk.



We can see the water when we look west from any intersection.

Sure enough, at lunch, I noticed two attractive women having a Christmas get together and exchanging gifts. "You guys, I know those people. They are lawyers I worked with 20 years ago," I whispered.

"Well, walk over there and say hello!", Dave insisted.

"That would be totally weird--it has been 20 years. The last time they saw me I was pregnant with Lucas. Oh yes, 'Lucas'. We had a case involving a very injured little baby named 'Lucas' and this is one reason why I thought of the name!" I mused. "No, this is too weird. They won't even remember me."

"Geez Mom," chimed in Lucas, "it wouldn't be weird if they came over here, would it?"

"You're right. We lived through some interesting times at that law firm with one of the three of us who was only twenty-something involved with the married 40 year old partner and it wasn't me," I replied.

Kaley reminded me, "Wow, Mom, you should write a book like you keep saying." We get our bill at the same time as the two women and leave at the same moment.

"Hey, I used to know you guys!" I called out with a smile.

"JANET! You look just the same!" And they hugged me as if it had been only 2 years and not 20. I told them they looked just as beautiful as ever and that I instantly recognized them. The size and age of my "babies" shocked them a little. The one who had had the torrid affair back in the day couldn't wait to tell me she had been married for 13 years to a wonderful man and had a nine year old son. The other became a multi-millionaire (I knew that from my favorite magazine, Washington Law and Politics) and never married or had children. Kaley liked the woman's purse and shoes which were evidently one of those brand names like gnocchi or juicy fruit or something. As I watched my beautiful daughter tell them she was "almost 17" and my handsome son told them about college and I told them we were downtown for our annual family Christmas visit, I realized without question, I took the right path in life.


Never too old to check out the Teddy Bear Suite