It was a special week.
I met Santa.
Twice!
My kids didn’t understand my enthusiasm. They’re at the age where they’ve long outgrown the Santa-down-the-chimney narrative. This “Santa guy” was just some guy wearing a red suit and a fake beard. For me, though, that didn’t matter. I’ve gained a new understanding of the Santa story.
It’s about believing.
It’s about the magic.
I remember many a Christmas morning hearing the kids run down the stairs to see if Santa had, in fact, left lots of toys. I remember their wide-eyed enthusiasm as they ran back up the stairs and into our bedroom to tell us that Santa had indeed showed up during the night. Magic. Pure magic.
And then at some point they figure it out.
The magic was over.
I guess that’s what “growing up” does to us all. It tends to suck the magic out of almost everything.
Over the years, yup, I’d lost my sense of magic. And not just about Christmas. I’d lost the magic of life. Adulting sort of got the best of me. Life became ordinary, often repetitively mundane. That’s what I chose to accept. That’s what I chose to believe.
What if I chose to believe something else?
It’s not so much about Santa. It’s more about what we are willing to believe about life and our own self and our own experience. How much magic do we simply not allow ourselves to see or experience? How often do we let “logic” steal our joy, draining the magic out of the magical moments of each new day? Of the magic in the things we routinely take for granted?
Even the magic of a new day itself?
As a child all I needed to do was believe. I was open to the possibilities of what I didn’t fully understand. Why can’t I again choose to see the magic in the things the adult me learned to see as just ordinary, to embrace that childlike wide-eyed wonder toward life itself and the gifts that life provides each of us if we simply choose to see them as gifts?
Maybe that’s what Santa has been trying to teach us all along?
Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com 
my husband died 14 years ago. i still miss seeing him every day. BUT –
he gave me a gift during our time together: we lived 5 hours apart
during much of our relationship, and he phoned me three times every
day. the ‘good morning’ call was ALWAYS his question, “what’s new and
exciting?” not only was he interested in me (how flattering!), but he
created a positive morning focus. it didn’t take long to reframe my
thinking so i’d be able to answer his question. when he passed, i
continued to keep up the morning calls, now MY calling his mom. she was
elder, and she never came up with an answer, but I already knew she
wouldn’t, so i was always prepared to give her ‘my’ new and exciting.
Now I write to grandchildren, and every letter includes the question in
one form or another…
You wrote, “How often do we let “logic” steal our joy, draining the
magic out of the magical moments of each new day? Of the magic in the
things we routinely take for granted?” thanks to my husband, NEVER! i
look for the new and exciting EVERY DAY. Sometimes, it’s just the smell
of good coffee. but it’s ALWAYS there and because HE helped form the
habit of looking for it, while i miss SEEING him every day, he is WITH
me every day!
(and i believe in santa, too…)
i do enjoy your posts, thanks!
~laura hewitt
http://www.hewittfarms.org/Thanks.html
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Thank you for sharing your story! Yes, he IS with you every day.
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