On the train home this afternoon, I avoided a seat with a puddle of water in it.  It’s not a particularly common occurrence, but it’s also never a good idea to sit down on the train before looking.  Several people at each stop performed the same dance: headed straight for the empty seat, then saw its contents and moved farther into the car.

Then came a young boy followed immediately by his mother.  The boy, anxious to pull himself into his own seat, reached up and stretched his hands across the chair, planting them right in the middle of the puddle — before his mother saw it, and before anybody had a chance to utter a word of warning.

His mother, disapproving but in good spirits, lamented while cleaning his hands, “See, you didn’t look before you leaped!  We don’t even know what’s in that water.”

The boy immediately announced,without missing a beat, and with a level of excitement normally reserved for new bicycles:

It might be pee!

Either he’s experienced this situation before, or this kid’s got a great future as a pessimist.

While I was shopping for Christmas presents at an excellent toy store called Magic Beans in Brookline today, I noticed a very small child — maybe a little over one year old — in front of me in line with her grandmother.

The child was clearly just beginning to speak, having perhaps mastered words like “no” and “da-da.”  And maybe “tape recorder,” which I’m told joined my own vocabulary right after “da-da” when my mother asked me to “say ‘da-da’ into the tape recorder.”  (Even then I had a sarcastic streak, apparently.)

This little girl was playing with some toys near the register, but when Grandma asked her to put them back, the child stomped right over to her (clearly exerting herself to walk upright at all, much less while holding toys), held up the playthings for Grandma to take, and then casually uttered two simple words, with near perfect pronunciation:

Buy it!

And that, boys and girls, is the story of how Christmas really began.