Recently I embarked on an Icelandic adventure to primarily see the northern lights. For the sake of transparency, the above gorgeous image from the free library is not the amazing photo that I took.

My photo turned out like this:

I took this photo using an app on my phone. For any borealis enthusiasts out there, when people tell you to bring a tripod for your camera and test out the photo application before you go out, the above is why. 🙂

I took two arguably sad, yet magical photos, and then put my camera away so that I could solely enjoy the moment and not worry about documenting it further. To paint the full picture, the lights appeared about two hours after my tour bus arrived at a remote location in the middle of Iceland and it was about eleven o’clock at night.

We’d been standing out in 15 degrees (fahrenheit) / -9 (celsius) for long enough that my “clever” idea of essentially wearing every item of clothing that I had packed in my carry-on for warmth seemed foolhardy. It was freezing cold and pretty boring just standing there in a field, looking up at the sky with a bunch of strangers. To add insult to injury, it was my second night of freezing in a field with strangers since the previous night I had gone out and not seen the lights at all.

As I started questioning my life choices and returned to the bus for some warmth, someone said that magical words: “The lights are here!” Everyone rushed toward the best spot to view them and we sort of mobbed into the same spot.

Looking up at the northern lights dancing in the night sky made me catch my breath with a child-like wonder and I no longer noticed the cold or the tourists crowding around me posing with their phones. Simply put, it was magical and epic – basically indescribable (even for a novelist like myself)!

Whatever you get up to during this holiday season, I hope you find a similarly well-earned moment of magic. Maybe it will be five minutes at the holiday dinner table when everyone is sharing a laugh, seeing twinkly lights draped across a downtown street, or venturing out to see the northern lights for yourself.

As Eden Philpotts said, “The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”

In my latest novel, Christmas at Maplemont Manor, there are several lovely holiday scenes that have a sense of magic to them – but there is one scene with reindeer that to me is the most magical of the novel. I won’t spoil it for readers, but let’s just say if you were hoping to find a little child-like wonder this holiday season from the comfort of your sofa, then there is a charming and warm holiday novel waiting for you!

Whatever this December brings to you, I do hope you stop to enjoy and dwell in the moments – because magical things are waiting for you to notice them. 🙂 Happy holidays!