(I just finished another semester at BYUI. This is my concluding essay for my English class.)
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.”
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