On on they send, on without end, their joyful tone to every home.

I don't know what's happening. I'm sorry. I seem to be in some strange sort of mood. I'm sorry - it's very rude of me. I seem to be unravelling.

Clarissa Vaughan, played by Meryl Streep, in The Hours (2002).

The first thing I think of when I think of Christmas is ‘X-mas’. I’m reassured by the fact that ‘X’ is a symbol for Christ. The next thing I think of is ‘Happy Holidays’, the politically correct substitute for ‘Merry Christmas’. Then I think of how I think of Santa before Christ. I think of presents. Saying that giving is better than receiving is not necessarily true. Sometimes I enjoy one more than the other and the other way around. I remember being a child on the lap of a mall-Santa pulling a fake beard away from a middle-aged and startled face. I remember being dismayed, but thinking, not that there was no Santa, but that this impostor wasn’t the right Santa. I remember the wonder I felt when I tugged on a real beard. This is him. The real deal.

I remember waking up as a child and seeing that the cookies really were eaten! It’s true! He exists! And I know my parents were sleeping; I saw them go to bed! Then, poof! Presents. There’s a Santa. I loved the smells. That Christmas tree smell. It seemed to pervade my house. I remember how my mom made me read either the Luke or the Matthew passage and faking that I was interested because all I wanted to do is tear open my presents with all the frenzy of a crazed maniac. I remember not being able to sleep the night before. It was so magical. I remember trying to stay awake so I could hear the reindeer hooves hit the roof. I’d run to my window to catch one quick glimpse. Maybe I could sneak outside and get a sneak peak of his back, or hear snorting. I’d run back to my bed under my covers. I couldn’t be caught; that would mean ‘no presents’, I’d reason. Why couldn’t I ever hear the presents being wrapped?



I remember the cold. It was a poignant frost. Filled with bitter-sweetness. I remember really getting angry at my classmates who said they swore Santa didn’t exist. They’d insist they caught their parents in the act. So what?, I’d think. That proves what exactly? Maybe you were bad and you’re parents were making up for it. Maybe you caught your parents wrapping only a certain portion of the presents you got. I remember when my mom sat me down to tell me the news. I feigned indifference. But even as I type this, I remember feeling a level of despair I hadn’t known up to that point. I remember my dad not wanting the news to be broken to me this way. My feelings of romanticism had been abruptly snuffed. But then the years went by.

I remember being a little more mature and stumbling across the story of St. Nick, a Greek bishop, with a reputation for secret gift-giving. I always remember The Christmas Carol, The Grinch, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, The Christmas Story, Scrooged, and let’s not forget Die Hard. I remember all these memories with a melancholy I haven’t truly felt until now. I miss my childhood very much. I miss the mystery and the innocence, when you really discover things for the first time. This next Christmas is really reminding me that I need to cherish all the blessings God has given me, and do it now in the present, and stop being so self-absorbed and worrying about tomorrow. I remember a time when I was more myself, before I wasn't diluted with all these other invading personalities that morphed my true self whichever way they did. That’s the word. I feel diluted. A child is so its true self because it doesn’t know enough to deceive itself. Once you start growing up, you start wanting to be other things besides what God made you to be, and you actually start changing yourself, bit by bit, little by little.

As another Christmas begins to go by, like a caboose on a train, I’m reminded of my mortality, but I’m also reminded that I need to not take anything God puts into my life for granted, to love my family and friends while they’re still here, while I’m still here. I need Christ so bad. So very bad. I can’t say it enough. We’re all Scrooges and we all need those ghosts sometimes to remind us of what was really important. No movie does this better than It’s a Wonderful Life. I watch it every Christmas. On that note, each one of us is George Bailey, settling for a life we didn’t plan for, sorting out our own despair, dealing with our own demons, our Mr. Potters, and hoping for that time when God sends some angel (whatever form that’ll take) to give us some deep insight into what’s really meaningful in life, and we come full circle to realize that we’re NOT islands.

We are members of a community. We need to help each other, since we’re all one in Him.