You'll find magic if you look for it

One of our old Christmas trees

“I believe in the magic of Christmas.” 

It’s my favorite line…and my children’s least favorite.  Only because It’s my ‘go-to’ line every time they question all the things that I can’t explain about the holiday season. 

 As a child when I questioned the magic that came with the holidays when many of my friends had stopped believing in magic (aka: flying reindeer, a fat man that rode in a sleigh and that mothers didn’t really have eyes on the back of their head), my brother tried to keep the Christmas magic alive for me. 

“I was up real late last night and I heard Santa’s reindeer on the roof.” My brother pointed toward the roof and nodded.

My sister and I stared up at the ceiling as if Santa might still be up there, or at least have left a flying reindeer.  My brother wouldn’t lie about something like this, he was old.  (Probably all of about eighteen, but not ancient like our parents.)

 “How does he get in?  We don’t have a fireplace.”  That had been the first chip in the Santa charade, none of the shows on television depicted him coming in the front door like my mother said, but my brother agreed with this as well.  

For the time being, I was pacified. 

Because I’d recently discovered the extraordinary magic housed in the books that I loved, and I wasn’t ready to part with believing in it.  My fascination with books such as The Fellowship of the Ring: The First Part of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien had me memorizing and reciting the poems from the book to anyone who would listen.

Just a few of my old favorites

''Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,

Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,

One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."

--- J.R.R. Tolkien's epigraph to The Lord of The Rings.

            Now that I have my own children teetering on the verge of ‘tweendom’, the question has come up for me as well and at one point, I almost let the cat out of the bag (check out my blog for this story and other Christmas crises) but that horrific experience has me vowing to never be the one to kill off the magic of the season (or the fat man).  Because despite the painstaking efforts to find the perfect present, it’s not the gifts that most people remember as years gone by, but the special memories made and traditions continued. 

Like how every year on Christmas Eve when I was little I used to get up in the middle of the night just to look at the tree.  The quiet of the night with the glow of the lights on the presents that had appeared were magical. 

This year I’ve bought my girls some of the first books I remember really loving, hoping they enjoy the world of magic they get taken to when they read them, just like I still do. 

Those are the gifts that money can’t buy.