Christmas Magic

I am in love with the holidays again!

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There was a while when I lost the sense of magic I had always had.

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As a child I loved Christmas: the tree, the decorations, the food, the gifts and their wrappings. I became my mother’s helper in baking cookies and wrapping gifts. I made the prettiest bows I could. How a gift looked was as important to me as what was inside it. The cookies were stacked up in tins by the dozens, awaiting Christmas eve.

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We would dress up in our best and drive to my Grandparents’ farm in the hills above our valley in Oregon, for the Christmas Eve dinner with my mother’s family. There was always turkey and stuffing and all of the trimmings. We kids ate around the round oak table in the kitchen. Then there would be one gift for each of us to open, determined by drawing names weeks ago. My aunt played the piano and we sang carols.

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About nine o’clock we would bundle back into the car to drive home, and as we did, we would beg our parents to let us open our gifts right away. So, way past knowing the ‘truth’ about Santa, we would have to pretend that were looking for Rudolf and the sleigh in the sky. When we got home, Mom and Dad would tell us to stay in the car until they got the house warmed up (we had wood heat), while they really scurried around digging out all of the gifts hidden away.

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It wasn’t hard to believe that Santa really had come while we were over the river and through the woods at Grandmother’s house. We were not well off, but we were very appreciative of what we got, and our parents loved creating the magic for our big family. When it was finally time for bed, we all had new flannel PJ’s to wear, snug in our beds.

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I went away to college, and then work, in Seattle, but I always made it home for Christmas, even in 1968, when I brought my new fiancé to meet the family. Tom and I left early Christmas morning that year to spend Christmas day with his family.

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After that year, we had a home of our own, and we began some new traditions. Our first child was born in 1973, and from then on, it was our turn to create the magic. We had many wonderful Christmases, usually with Tom’s family in Washington State, but we usually got together with my big family in Oregon on or near my mother’s birthday on Dec. 28^th.

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But alas, kids grow up. They act as if all the ‘fussing’ isn’t necessary, or cool. And the magic faded. I still baked cookies and wrapped pretty packages and decorated the house, but it felt hollow somehow. That is, until there were grandchildren!

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It’s heartwarming to watch Jill create the magic for her kids. Isaac is almost eight but he still believes! He knows it is Santa who puts trinkets in the Advent box. And if he has any doubt, he’s not saying. Who wants to spoil the magic?

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Last year when Jill brought her family to Seattle for Christmas, I had to do everything just like I used to, the same cookies, the same wreath over the mantle, all of it. I guess it was cool after all.

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I get annoyed by those who chant “remember the reason for the season”. We all deserve to celebrate in our own way. The Birth of the Christ Child is a beautiful story, and central to many. But there are so many layers to the season, which in my heritage is built on the ways of the ancestors in the north lands of Europe, centered first of all on the winter solstice, and the return of the light. That light can be the sun and The Son all rolled into one. It can be the evergreen boughs representing life continuing in the dead of winter and the evergreen tree we now call the Christmas tree or the Holiday tree. Santa or Saint Nick or Father Christmas or the jultomten can bring you gifts. It doesn’t matter.

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What matters is the magic!

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So I’m wishing you a

Merry, Magical Christmas

and

at least just a bit more of

Peace On Earth!