I had a Skype date with my 22-month-old granddaughter, Evie, and her mama this week. When it began, I was all settled in at my desk and ready to ask questions, sing songs, and chat with Emily while watching the little girl demonstrate her crazy-good abilities to whirl in circles and fall down in a giggling little heap on her diaper-padded bottom. But Evie had different ideas.

As soon as she saw the lighted Christmas tree in the background, she wanted to go walkabout in my home and see everything. She remembered some things from having been here to help us decorate the tree and put out few of the decorations, just after Thanksgiving when her family was here visiting. So, we looked at the tree, up close. We looked at the special Evie ornament and the ornaments featuring pictures of her mama and daddy the year that they were married and the brand new one celebrating the recent marriage of Uncle Colton and Aunt Carly. Oh, yes … we also looked carefully at the little baby in a sleigh that commemorates Evie’s mama’s first Christmas back in 1988.

Then Evie suddenly said “button music!” She was remembering the Christmas music box, disguised as a red wrapped present with a big green bow on top. She knew that, if someone would just push the little red button, the top of the gift would slowly rise up, Christmas songs would play, and little ice skaters would be revealed frantically skating in circles to the music. So we watched “button music” several times, before moving on to identify and greet every “Santie Claus” in the room – the one riding on the sleigh built from multiple kinds of candy, the beautiful ceramic St. Nicholas-shaped plate hanging on the wall, and the one on Uncle Colton’s stocking.

We moved on to finding angels and then to naming the people in my odd little toilet paper roll crèche (a creation of Uncle Colton at age 4 or 5). Evie was at first completely confused and mystified by it. But when I finally brought the camera in closely, she could see the primitive little pencil-drawn eyes and mouths and recognized them as faces. That was when she called the blue one “Mary” and the brown one “Jophes.” But there was absolutely no convincing her that half a tongue depressor swaddled in gauze and lying in a split toilet paper roll manger was a baby Jesus. We moved on to the more life-like baby Jesus in the official manger scene.

That finally brought us to the snowmen – one that is constantly changing colors and has glittery water swirling inside its belly, one that’s a mug and was decorated by Evie’s mama, and the fascinating teapot snowman with the removable head. The last one required a trip to the sink to demonstrate that with the head removed, water could then be put in the pot, the head reattached, and the water poured out of the spout and into a teacup. Wow! “More water teacup!”

When we finally landed back at my desk, there was one final request for “ice cream” – which, of course, meant that Evie wanted to see a little stick with shimmery, colorful strands of metallic paper attached to one end. It’s a silly little thing that I saved from an ice cream treat I ate while in Venice. I sent Evie a picture of me enjoying that treat, with its festive decoration stuck in the middle, and now she associates it with ice cream. She loves to simply watch as I twirl the stick between the palms of my hands and the metallic colors sparkle and shimmer and dance before her eyes on the Skype screen.

All this to say, that the wee Evie — with her eyes full of wonder, with delightfully minute memories tucked away in her brain, and with her endless curiosity and drive to learn about every tiny thing – made the familiar speak to me in a new way. She gave me a fresh vision. She caused me to notice more sparkle. And she reminded me that Jesus doesn’t always come to us looking anything like the expected Messiah or in traditional surroundings; that it’s important for us to remember the magic awaiting if we know how to open the gifts just right; that filling ourselves up so we can pour ourselves out again and again is as vital as water is to life; and, that a little shimmer and shine should never be optional.

Oh yes … it’s good to be the Gran!