The other day I was driving in my car, talking to my eleven-year-old son, who turned twelve a few weeks later, about Christmas story ideas. He said “mom, maybe you should do one on how Santa is real and show evidence”. I smiled and bittersweetness washed over me. my mind went back to a toddler running out to a brand new swing set, to a curious one year old on his first power wheels, one very cold Christmas morning in my dad’s yard. I knew that was his way of saying if you want me to believe then prove it to me. Sadly, he is in the unbelieving stage, with a bit of pretending - to spare my oh so fragile feelings. He knows every milestone he reaches is my first also and I am holding on tight to the little boy, snug as a bug, wearing a multicolor sweater hat riding a purple and yellow hot wheels three wheeler, laughing with utter joy as I laughed with him. He knows my feelings can only take so much.
My mind quickly went into super spy stealth mom mode and tried to dream up evidence that Santa is real, because maybe for one more Christmas he can be. Then I thought about it. I know this may be the last year he pretends to believe in magic and I have no evidence to give him, no evidence to give a child that deals with fact and reason. I am not going to offer him anything, I am going to pretend along with him. I'm going to let him pretend to believe in all things enchanted even if his face does not light up the way his sister’s face does when she finds the elf every morning. Even if the Christmas countdown on the fridge is not as sacred to him as it once was. I even let him opt out of breakfast with Santa because he honestly had no desire to see the jolly old man that used to light up his Christmas that we once visited ten times every December.
Next year I know I will have to suck up my feelings and admit defeat. I will have to admit to him that maybe there is not a man that comes into your house on Christmas Eve and maybe there may not be a grand snow covered home in the North Pole with magical reindeer waiting to fly. I will have to admit that Tiny Tim does not fly to see Santa every night, and mom is responsible for all his crazy antics. Cute little elves do not make toys and everything about the legend is just an elaborate story based on a generous man named St. Nicholas. Yet, I will explain to him that none of that means the magic is not real. It just means that moms, dads, aunts, uncles, and grandparents all over help to keep a beautiful legend alive.Help to keep a little more beauty and magic into the world. Help to make one of the loveliest times of the year so much lovelier. There may be no physical evidence that magic appears down your chimney, but you can feel magic in the room on Christmas morning. You can see it on the faces of all the children of the world and one day you will provide that kind of magic to your children and look at their beautiful amazed faces and know that magic does exist. I will explain to him that he is one of the reasons I still believe in magic. I will tell him it was never a lie, that all the love in the world goes into creating the Christmas season. Santa and the belief in him helps bring that magic every Christmas.
To quote Francis Pharcellus Church, 119 years after his beloved letter to Virginia, “Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus.” I would have to agree with Mr. Church it would be a very dreary world indeed.
