https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d6/09/83/d60983814cddc46fdb00f67c3b82da3a.jpg


 (I just finished another semester at BYUI. This is my concluding essay for my English class.) 
 
The Man in the Red Suit
            I stood there, looking at my mother as she sat in front of me on the pale blue, plush covered toilette seat, her feet resting on the matching rug beneath. Some childhood memories end up traveling life’s entire journey with you; this is one of those such memories. Being born with a naturally believing heart, I wholeheartedly believed in the existence of the man in the red suit with his eight, tiny reindeer. When I was just shy of turning 12 years old, I noticed that the kids at school had all changed their view of this man and they boldly declared it. What? Santa Claus not real? Impossible, and I timidly told them so. At home, I must have spoken aloud my fellow student’s change of view on Santa because, shortly after, my mother decided it was time for “the talk”. The house seemed strangely quiet as mother pulled me into the bathroom. With six younger siblings, the house was rarely quiet or still. Mother softly closed the door from the hall, then turning, she gently slid close the access door that led to her and my father’s bedroom. “Is someone napping?” I thought to myself, “am I in trouble?” In my mind’s eye, I quickly made a mental recap of the recent days looking for something out of line that might need correcting; I couldn’t recall anything. Mother sat, took my hands in hers, and said, “We need to talk about Santa Claus.” Guarded, I replied “Ok...?” Proceeding forward, she explained that even though the jolly man in the red suit is not a current, living and breathing person, he did still exist in the form of what is called the Spirit of Christmas. My believing, childlike heart relaxed and I left the bathroom with the innocence of youth somewhat still intact. “Ok” I thought, “Santa is the Spirit of Christmas. I can believe in the Spirit of Christmas” and for years to come, that was the end of that.
            More than a decade of magical Christmas’s passed by. I married, had children of my own, and still believed in the “Spirit of Christmas” and I fully planned on representing that Spirit well with my own children. My spouse was not so childlike in his thinking and carried with him a somewhat negative view of the man in the red suit, claiming he just doesn’t fit with what Christmas is truly about. Rearranging the letters in Santa, he attributed the money spent, the focus directed, and the spectacle of the whole holiday menagerie to a different sort of man than the one I grew up believing in. Since our children were young, I felt we needed to decide what we wanted for our family Christmas traditions. I knew we needed ones that focused on Christ and embodied the true meaning of Christmas, but couldn’t that still include Santa Claus? Surely there was room for this jolly man among the shepherds and the wise men, but where did he fit, and how was I going to shape and mold the innocent beliefs of my children? Would believing in Santa Claus diminish their love for, and belief in the Christ child that lay at the heart of Christmas? I just could not bring myself to believe that it would. We settled on a compromise; “Santa” would bring three gifts Christmas morning to represent the three gifts left by the wise men, and my dear husband would do his best to keep his “bah humbugs” regarding Santa Claus to himself, for the most part. Satisfied with the spot we had found for the man in the red suit, I laid to rest my worries regarding Santa and celebrating the true meaning of Christmas. It wouldn’t be until years later that I would come to learn just how truly connected the man in the red suit is to the child that lay in a manger.
C. S. Lewis, one of the greatest storytellers of the 20th century, included Santa by the name of Father Christmas in one of his Narnia books. As a deeply religious man, he understood that God made our imaginations and hardwired us to connect deeply with stories. He also knew that even if a story is not verifiably true, it can still communicate truth. In his dedication of The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe he wrote this inscription to his goddaughter Lucy Barfield:
“My Dear Lucy,
I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result, you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say but I shall still be,
your affectionate Godfather,
C.S. Lewis”
            This dedication suggests that when we think we have grown too old for fairy tales, fables, and childlike stories such as Santa Claus, we are in fact not yet matured enough to understand them. I learned this wisdom for myself while sitting in a movie theater, a few years after our Christmas compromise. I had come to view The Polar Express that day, a story book which had been put into film. As I sat in the darkened room, I felt as if the jovial conductor was talking to me as he counseled The Boy about the importance of getting on the train. From there on, I saw small, illuminating bits of truth emerge throughout the film as The Boy and I magically made our way to the North Pole and back. These truths were obviously meant for fostering belief in Santa Claus, but I felt they represented belief in someone else I had come to know and love, but couldn’t physically see; that someone was Jesus Christ, a man that is also known for wearing a red robe. From that day, the connection at Christmastime between Santa Claus and Jesus Christ has never been the same. I had found for myself that there is indeed room among the shepherds and the wise men for the man in the red suit, for he represents the very king we rejoice in and revere. Like the Conductor said, “Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can’t see.”
 From the child in the bathroom, to the adult in the movie theater, the deep connection I found through the story of The Polar Express perhaps meant, as C.S. Lewis put it, that I had finally grown old enough to start believing in Santa Claus again. Perhaps I loved Santa and believed in him back then, because in him I saw a glimpse of who I know now. The Spirit of Christmas that my mother gave to me in the bathroom to believe in all those years ago, is the Spirit of Christ, and just as the song from the movie suggests, when it comes to the man in red, “You have everything you need, if you just believe.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fine Tuning a Listening Ear

"If we acknowledge Him now, He will lovingly acknowledge and gladly admit us then!”

Friendship