Billy Coffey's Blog, page 24

The tension between truth and magic

My wife—God bless her—is a person of many virtues. She is kind. Compassionate. Faithful, to both her family and her God. And she is as honest a person as you will ever meet in your life.

It’s that last one that’s been causing all the trouble lately.

It began the day after Christmas, when my son decided to spend some quality time with his new Calvin & Hobbes comic book, whereupon he found The One. You know—The One where Calvin rushes downstairs because it’s Christmas Eve and he thinks he hears Santa. The One where Hobbes rushes down, too. The one where both child and toy discover not jolly old Saint Nick setting out Calvin’s gifts, but Calvin’s parents.

My son is not stupid. Two and two were put together in short order, leading him in a straight line to his kind, compassionate, faithful, and honest mother, who cannot bear to lie to her children. About anything. And so with our son staring up at her with two brown, saucer eyes, she had no choice but admit the truth.

Now, more than a week later, our family is still in collective mourning. Christmas vacation ending and school beginning once more has not buoyed my son’s mood. These are dark times in the Coffey home. Dark times indeed.

Good thing we have a dog. Daisy is her name. Part lab, part retriever, part crazy. A rescue from the local pound, and a paragon of many virtues herself. Kind. Compassionate. An expert snuggler. She is also quite the escape artist.

Daisy managed to finagle her way out of her crate today. The damage was minimal and upon first inspection limited to moving every chew toy in the house to my bedroom closet. When my son and I left to walk the dog, all seemed well.

A second pass by my wife, however, revealed something else. At some point during the day, Daisy decided to attack my son’s favorite stuffed animal. I suppose I can blame myself for what happened next. Upon arriving home, I asked if she had spotted any further wanton destruction.

My son flashed his brown, saucer eyes once more. I am convinced such a thing operates as some kind of parental polygraph. My wife held up the stuffed animal. She didn’t stand a chance.

As it turned out, the damage required nothing more than a little cosmetic surgery to reattach a fuzzy nose. And yet three hours later, my son is still crying over Winston The Stuffed Dachshund. You would think our dog had mauled Santa.

I haven’t said much about this to anyone else, though I did offer this bit of advice to the mother of my children:

Lie. Lie to our kids. Lie like a freaking dog.

She still can’t, of course, nor will she ever. It’s not in my wife’s nature to do such a thing, and it’s all a very large part of why I love her. But the fact remains that I have no compunction to lie to my kids when I feel the situation warrants it.

Is Santa real? Absolutely. He lives at the North Pole and has a bunch of elves and rides around in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer.

Did the dog tear anything up? Nope, not a single thing. Now you go wash up for supper and ignore the needle, thread, and severed puppy nose in my hand.

See? Not that difficult. And yet…

And yet a part of me feels horrible knowing I’m spreading such falsehoods. It’s guilt and remorse and everything bad, and the only way I can feel better is to tell myself all those nasty feelings are okay because those lies are keeping my kids believing just a little while longer, and safe just a little more.

Deep down I know my wife is right. But here’s the thing—she knows I’m right, too. Parenting is compromise, after all. That is why when circumstances warrant a truth from now on, whether soft or hard, my wife will be the one to deliver it. But when situations call for a little magic, that cue is mine.

We’ll see if it works. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go arrange some Matchbox cars. My son’s still convinced they come alive at night from time to time and race around his room. Should he ask his mother about this, she’ll tell him to go ask me. Should he ask me, I’ll tell him this:

Hang on, son. Trust in magic. Because that’s the stuff of dreams.

Maybe next year

image courtesy of photo bucket.com

I found the invitation on the front door last Saturday afternoon, affixed there by a thick strip of camouflage duct tape. The New Year’s Eve party at a neighbor’s house around the corner has been an annual affair for as long as we’ve lived at the edge of the wood. According to the card, they’d decided to step things up a bit. Barbecue was on the menu. Entertainment would be provided by the big screen that arrived on Christmas morning and the pool table that arrived the Christmas before. Fireworks at the stroke of midnight. As if to employ one last effort to state the obvious, underlined on the inside of the card was a promise that it would be “The best damn night I’ll ever have.”

I didn’t go.

I laced up my boots and grabbed my hat and took a stroll around the corner to deliver my regrets in a proper way. The neighbors understood. We’ve known one another for quite a while.

New Year’s has always been a quiet time for me. The circumstances lend itself to a certain introspection. The last of December to the first of January is always a good time to take stock of things. It’s a fine spot to pause in our travels and look around, to see how far we’ve come and how far we’ve yet to go, and to make sure we haven’t somehow gotten lost along the way. Serious stuff that, to me, requires a good dose of solemnity. There is an almost spiritual quality to those final hours of the year, when all is dark and quiet and it feels as though the whole world is holding its breath. It’s a holy time, one nearly on par with that grand morning seven days prior when I woke to magic and joy.

I tried the New Year’s Eve party idea exactly once, as a senior in high school. It was all fine until the hands of the antique clock on the mantle neared their union. Drinks were poured and toasts raised. Couples clutched one another in anticipation. Those who had come in search of company scrambled to find someone—anyone—to kiss at midnight. The home was an old colonial built well before the Revolution, surrounded by woods and barren cornfields. I ended up in the middle of those fields as the old turned to the new, staring at the stars. To this day, that is the best New Year’s I’ve ever had. It has become the standard by which I have measured all the rest.

That’s what I do now. No parties, no alcohol, no whooping and hollering. Come midnight on the first, I take a walk outside. I look at the stars and I breathe deep, and I ready myself for one more trip through the calendar. Did it this January first, too. I could hear the neighbors celebrating. I wished them well.

For years I thought myself a misfit for preferring quiet to clamor during this time of year. I don’t any longer. I finally figured out that to me every new year is a blank page, and there is nothing that fills me at once with more excitement and fear as that. It’s a chance to write a new story, to begin again, even as I know failure is inevitable. I will stumble through many of my days just as I stumble through many of my words, trying to find the right order and the right tone, all the while understanding that perfection will be impossible.

It’s a tough thing, this living. It hurts and scars. Maybe that’s why so many choose to trade one year for the next by plunging themselves into the nearest party. I know for sure that’s why I choose a little quiet. A little perspective.

When the clock at my house turned from 13 to 14, I was sitting in a lawn chair in my backyard. Above me, the Milky Way stretched in a dull ribbon from one end of the sky to the next. The silence was broken by the boom and shine of fireworks. I watched as they burned bright, only to fade to quiet once more. Just like us, I suppose. Oh, but how they burned. They lit the sky in wonder and daylight and chased the shadows away, and I toasted them with a glass of iced tea.

Maybe I’ll go next year.

Tidings of comfort

This Christmas began what I hope will become a new tradition for the Coffey house. On Christmas Eve, my daughter sat at the grand piano in the equally grand foyer of the local hospital. For forty-five minutes, she provided background music to the steady pulse of whispers and footsteps and intercom pages.

“Silent Night.” “Joy to the World.” “Away in a Manger.” The notes shaky at first, timid, only to gain in both confidence and volume as the moments drew on.

I sat with my son and wife on the worn leather sofa in the middle of the foyer. The perfect spot to listen and nod and smile in support. Also, the perfect spot to see what would happen when those songs of hope and joy were played in such a setting. To see a bit of light cast into such a darkened place.

We were alone for a while. There is a current to every public place, one that flows and meanders of its own accord regardless of what attempts are made to alter it. So we all settled in, us on the sofa and she at the keys, joining the crowd rather than ask the crowd to join us.

The automatic doors leading to the parking lot squeaked with a certain poetic regularity. The people who entered did so with a slow purpose, as if walking through molasses. Their arms ladened with ribboned bags overstuffed with gifts. Plastic smiles that sunk no deeper than the first layer of skin greeted us. Their thoughts were plain enough that I saw them well. It is Christmas, these people thought, and I am here—not at home, but here.

My daughter played: Let every heart/Prepare Him room.

In those small spaces where the elevators clustered, those coming in met those going out. These people, too, could not hide their thoughts. I watched as orderlies pushed the freed in wheelchairs as worn and tired as the smile on the patients’ faces. They were greeted at the doors by family members who rushed in from the circular drive just outside—rushed in, I thought, not to escape the cold, but to rescue their loved ones before some unknown doctor reconsidered the discharge order.

My daughter bolder now, smiling down at the ivory keys: And heaven and nature sing.

A nurse stopped on her way to some far-flung department to listen. An old man sat in the chair across from us, drawn there more by the music than the promise of comfort. The December sun glinted off the wall of windows in front of us. Puffy clouds raced overhead, molded into shapes by the wind. More people stopped—patients and visitors, security officers, doctors. Not for long and only to smile as those notes rang out (Round yon virgin, mother and child) before walking on with a nod and a smile.

And slowly, ever so gently, that current changed.

It was not diverted, nor could it have been. This was a hospital, after all. In such places where so much life mingles with so much death, the heaviness in the air is both constant and unchanging. And yet I saw smiles during my daughter’s recital, and I heard the hard sighs of comfort and the sound of applause.

And I knew then this great truth—we cannot heal what has been irrevocably broken. We cannot bring peace in a life where there will always be war, nor healing to a place fallen from grace. Such things are beyond our ability. We have no such power.

Yet even if we are powerless to change this world, we still have the power to nudge it a bit in the direction it should go. To bring joy to another, even for a moment. To inspire and lift up. To give hope.

To endure.

Her favorite gift

image courtesy of photo bucket.com

Ask any kid—or better yet, search your own memory— and you’ll find the most pressing question in the days proceeding Christmas is three one-syllable words:

What’d you get?

I’ve both asked and answered that question hundreds of times in my life (and if I’m honest, I’ll confess to asking and answering it much more now than when I was seven). I think that’s okay. So much is made of how commercial Christmas has become and how secular everything has gotten. Both are valid points. But hey, everyone wants to know when you’ve gotten new stuff.

As for the Coffey household, I’ll say Santa was pretty good to us this year. Some of us would say he was better to us than we deserve. That, too, is okay. What better presents to receive than grace and mercy? Which is pretty much what the world’s presents were on that first Christmas long ago, all wrapped up in bone and flesh and blood.

My son would say we had “a good haul.” A pretty typical response from a pretty average nine-year-old boy. But there’s someone I know who received far more this year, and that’s what I wanted to share.

Many of you know my wife is a teacher. If you have one of those in your life, then you understand my saying that profession could be best described as a thankless one. Lots of work, lots of stress, lots of blame. Sometimes, though, there are those little rays of light that break through an otherwise dour world. One of her co-workers received just that on the last day before Christmas vacation.

This was what a little girl in class delivered to her:

Deciphering a child’s art is an art unto itself. It can often be a tricky thing, even for an experienced teacher. Thankfully, said teacher has spent enough years in a classroom to know just how to coax meaning without offending.

“Tell me about this wonderful picture,” she said.

The girl told her it was the two of them holding hands as they lay upon the playground grass trying to make shapes out of the clouds. The white, winged figure? An angel, of course. It’s a pretty day, she said, but see that swirl of black in the middle on the left side? There’s a bad storm coming. Already, it’s blocking out the sun.

Beautiful, yes? The teacher thought so. My wife thought so. I thought so, too.

But there was more.

As it turned out, the picture was sort of a stocking stuffer—an hors d’oeuvre meant to whet the appetite for the main course to come. The girl pointed to the maroon blob just beneath the angel, which was not a blob at all. It was a special something packaged in a Tootsie-pop wrapper, held in place by a bit of Scotch tape. Then the girl grinned a big, toothy smile.

The teacher peeled the gift from its place beneath the angel, careful not to ball the tape, and unraveled the packaging. The girl shifted her weight from left to right. Stood on her tiptoes. Licked her lips. Kept smiling. If the teacher didn’t hurry up, she thought her student was going to explode with anticipation.

This was what she found inside:

A river rock. Worn smooth by time and polished by two tiny, patient hands.

Cheap, some would say. But not in my town. In my town, we know how hard things have gotten because things have always been that way. There isn’t a classroom in my wife’s school that doesn’t contain children who each day arrive in hand-me-downs so threadbare that they are nearly transparent. Children whose shoes are held together by duct tape. Who are given free lunches because their parents are too poor to feed their children or themselves.

And yet these children still come, every day. They still smile and laugh. They still give out of their hearts and their love, even if it is a rock.

I don’t know what that teacher got for Christmas. She has a husband and grown children who all earn livings. I’m sure she received quite a bit, and rightly so.

But I guarantee you that rock is her favorite of them all.

My favorite miracle

image courtesy of photo bucket.com

Quick, tell me your favorite miracle.

Isn’t easy, is it? The Bible is full of them, after all—those sixty-six books of God’s revelation. It is history and theology, philosophy and poetry. From a strictly literary perspective, it’s some of the finest ever produced. And yet the Bible is especially a long collection of miracles, one strung after the other, spanning thousands of years.

So, which is your favorite?

Creation itself, perhaps. The parting of the Red Sea. Jesus feeding the five thousand. Lazarus raised.

Those are only a few, of course. The miracle that came to my mind was Christ’s first (or first recorded, at any rate), while attending a wedding at Cana. It isn’t my personal favorite, though I’ll say His turning water into wine holds a certain significance to me. I’ve felt felt that particular miracle was a bit different than all the others that came after. To me, this one was simply a son wanting to do something for his mother. There is a deep sense of humanity in that small but great act.

Here’s the thing about that miracle: it wasn’t simply that water was changed to wine, it was that something less was made into something more. That seems the general rule. So far as I can tell, miracles follow that pattern of less to greater.

Consider the examples I mentioned earlier. For all its mystery and grandeur, the miracle of creation can be boiled down to the “less” of nothing being transformed into the “more” of everything.

The parting of the Red Sea? Danger to safety.

It was hunger changed to fullness when Christ fed the five thousand.

It was death made into life when Lazarus walked out of his tomb.

That’s the way all miracles are. All but one.

We celebrate this time of year because it commemorates the birth of Christ. It is, to every Christian, a miracle. Think of that miracle in the most rational of terms—Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How—and you’ll find that within that miracle are many more.

Who was born? The Savior of the world.

What happened? An angel appeared to a group of shepherds, some of the poorest people in the world, who became the first witnesses of what had just occurred.

When? According to Paul, God sent forth his son “in the fullness of time.” A wonderful phrase, that. Meaning that it happened just when God meant it to happen, just as with all things.

Where? Bethlehem, so fulfilling a prophecy made centuries before.

Why? So death could become for us not an end, but a door.

How?

Ah, how.

How did all of this happen? I suppose it could only be best described as the miracle of miracles. Because in all the other times before and all the times since, something less was made more. But in this instance, something more was made less. God Himself became man. The all-powerful was changed to pink-skinned and frail.

Amazing, isn’t it? And yet I can think of no truer expression of love than that of a God so big squeezing Himself into a world so small. Of living alongside us and understanding the joys and pains of our short existence. Of dying so that we all may live.

That, friend, is why the birth of Christ is my favorite miracle.

And that is how I can wish you the most happiest of Christmases.

No home for the weary

image courtesy of photobucket.com

It just wouldn’t be Christmas in our house without someone getting hurt. It’s sort of an unintentional family tradition, one that is inevitable given all of the wires and lights and greenery (yes, greenery is dangerous. I’ve proven that).

This year the ouchy came by way of those cardboard tubes that are at the end of every roll of wrapping paper. The ones that look like they were made specifically for impromptu sword fighting. Which is what my daughter and I were doing in the living room.

It was a mostly benign affair in the beginning, and I will say that she started it. I was walking by, and she tapped me on the leg. And since I’m one of those fathers who won’t allow his kids to one-up him, I grabbed the other empty tube and tapped her back.

She tapped me.

I tapped her.

It started like that. It ended with the two of us whacking away at each other like extras in Pirates of the Caribbean. The laughs and giggles and threats ended when our heads collided and we sprawled onto the floor.

Uh-oh.

My daughter had the benefit of youth and a harder head. She rolled over and got up immediately, ready for more. Then she saw me still on the carpet. The miniature mommy inside her kicked into gear.

She dropped her piece of cardboard, raced over to me, and said, “Don’t move!”

“Why?” I asked her.

“Because you might be hurt. We learned about this in school.”

So I didn’t move. Partly because I wanted to see a bit of what she’d been learning in school, and partly because lying on the carpet really felt good.

“Okay,” she said, “first, what happened?”

“You whacked me with your head,” I told her.

“Can you move?”

“Yes.”

“Do you see stars?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who you are?”

“I think so.”

She nodded. “Okay, then you’re supposed to get up.”

So I did just that. She said I was supposed to ask her the same questions she’d asked me. I obliged. We both arrived at the conclusion that we were fine and so should resume our cardboard-sword fight.

We flailed our arms again, this time careful to keep a bit of empty space between us. Then the thought occurred to me that what my daughter had just asked me would be pertinent to more than the body taking a tumble. It could work when your life takes one, too.

We’ve all been knocked on our backs a time or two. Losing a job. Losing a love. The routine visit to the doctor that turns out to be something serious.

And sometimes things aren’t that dramatic. We don’t always land on our backs with a thud. Sometimes it’s just the constant weariness that goes along with being alive or the apparent ordinariness of our days.

If that’s you, you’re not alone. But it’s time to do something about it. So in the spirit of my daughter, I ask you these questions:

What happened? Identifying the problem is an important first step. Knowing what went wrong can help you make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Once you figure that out, Can you move? Is this something that’s paralyzed you with fear or sadness? If it has, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Counseling can do amazing things. I speak from experience.

Do you see stars? This isn’t a good thing when your body takes a tumble, but it’s a necessity when your life takes one. Looking down on yourself seldom improves anything. Better is to look up to God.

Do you know who you are? Always an important question, and one that will likely take most of your life to figure out. But you’re doing well as long as you’re trying.

Pretty simple, huh? Simple enough for me to try it out the next time my own life takes a tumble. I’ll ask myself those questions and answer them as honestly as I’m able. And after all that, I’ll do what my daughter said and what we’re all supposed to do.

Get up.

Keep going.

Try again.

Because life is not for the faint, and this world is no home for the weary.

A Charlie Brown Christmas surprise

Facebook is one of those things that tend to eat up more of my time than necessary. The idea that face-to-face interaction is a necessity for forging friendships is one the internet age seems to have laid to rest. It can, and in fact does, happen. I’ve met a great deal of people online that I willingly call friends, and the fact that I often have little more to go on than their avatar and the words they type doesn’t matter.

Funny, isn’t it?

Over the weekend, I posted something on Facebook about one of my all-time favorite Christmas specials. I’ve watched A Charlie Brown Christmas every year since I can remember, can quote vast passages from it word for word. But this year, I spotted something I’d never seen before. Something important. I flung it out on my Facebook wall, hoping it might provide some food for thought. The response was enough that I wanted t post it here as well:

Linus has always been my favorite Peanuts character, all because of that blanket. How he always carries that thing around. It’s his peace and his confidence and the most treasured thing in his life. To him, it’s the one thing that keeps him safe.

But even though he’s my favorite, I never noticed until this morning what Linus does during the most important scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas. Charlie Brown breaks down into a fit, asking if there’s anyone who knows what Christmas is all about, and Linus takes the stage to recite from Luke 2. He gets to the shepherds abiding in the fields and the angel appearing, and that’s when it happens—the one tiny act that, after watching that show every year since I was a boy, actually made me tear up a little:

Linus says, “And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not,’” and then he lays down his blanket.

Leaves it on the dusty, dirty stage. As though telling everyone that all the peace and confidence and safety wrapped up in that blue blanket pales to what the swaddled babe lying in that manger offers us all.

I’ve always missed that. I never will again. To me, that second or two of a child’s cartoon is some of the most profound storytelling I’ve ever witnessed.

Christmas magic

image courtesy of photobucket.com

Much thanks for all the kind emails and comments regarding Little Girl’s post Monday. I’ve passed each of them along, and she’s most thankful. There are few things more important to a fledgling writer (as well as a not-so-fledgling writer) as a good dose of encouragement. I know this from experience.

I offered Little Girl the proverbial blank canvas. Write about anything, I told her. That she chose a story that included Santa was welcomed by both of her parents. It also, in a way, confirmed something that’s been wriggling around in my mind this Christmas season. Something that involves not only Little Girl, but Little boy as well.

They’re older now, if you consider eleven and nine old. I do. How and when my children began growing up are questions that continue to elude me. One of the best pieces of fatherly advice I ever received was from someone who told me it won’t matter at all how old my children are, to me they’ll always be just getting out of diapers. I’ve found that true. I expect it will be true for a long while.

Normally, their reality doesn’t get in the way of my perception. My kids can grow all they want. The toys that got them through the early years can find their way from the tops of their dressers to the backs of their closets, forgotten and dusty. I can walk into their bedrooms and see the squiggly penciled lines that mark how tall they’ve gotten. They can start asking weird questions about other girls and boys. I’ll notice these things, but I won’t see them. A person will go to great lengths to protect the lies they tell themselves, and the lie that nothing is changing especially.

But I’m finding that’s hard to do at Christmas.

On the surface, everything is the same. Both of my kids are still gung-ho about decorating the tree and the house, finding the little porcelain wise man who wanders around from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day looking for the Nativity atop the fireplace, baking cookies and singing carols. All of those things are going well. Fine, even. But there’s one part of Christmas that has gone missing this year — there’s been little desire for Santa. There have been no outgoing letters placed in the mailbox, no mention of going down to the mall and sitting on his lap. Nothing. Nada.

You know what? I think they both know.

It pains me, having to admit that. But I can deny no longer. Little Girl and Little Boy know there is no Santa, at least not in the way they’ve both been led to believe. Santa is their parents, the North Pole the Charlottesville mall, the elves all those daring people behind the cash registers, the flying reindeer my old truck.

It has to be crushing. I remember finding out the truth myself, right about their age. It crushed me.

It would be nice to be able to talk to them about this, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Neither can my wife. Because even now there is that tiny strand of hope deep within us both that says maybe they still believe, and even if they only believe a little, that little is well worth protecting. So there is only a shaky silence now — a hole where there used to be a very big Something.

But here’s the thing: Little Girl still wrote that story.

And written on the small chalkboard in the kitchen is this note in Little Boy’s hand: “Dear Santa, I’ve been really good this year. Please bring me stuff.”

And last night while we were all outside looking at the stars, both of them pointed at a flashing jet in the sky and pronounced that light to be Rudolph’s nose. A practice run, they said, and then they both smiled.

I smiled, too. It was to me a small dose of a new sort of Christmas magic, one just as meaningful and powerful as the one we all have perhaps now lost. A magic that proved our time on Earth can be best drawn in a circle rather than a line. My kids are still playing the game, but it isn’t for their benefit. I’ve spent years helping them to believe. Now, they’re helping me.

Isabella’s Christmas: a very special guest post

It isn’t often that I have someone guest post in my little corner of cyberspace. Then again, it isn’t often that the person who requests to do so is a child of mine. My daughter, who will be known for these purposes as the Little Girl, wants to be a writer when she grows up. As you may imagine, I’m all for it. And since Christmas really is a time of year when we can all be kids, I thought I’d let a kid do the writing today.

Here’s her story:

The Christmas tree glittered and lit up the whole room. Eleven year old Isabella Grace sat on the couch, sipping hot chocolate and watching Mickey’s A Christmas Carol. She was so excited, she could barely sit still. It was Christmas Eve! Her little brother and little sister took turns checking the Countdown to Christmas ornament on their Christmas tree and announcing what it said every twenty seconds.

“Zero days, nine hours, thirteen minutes, and thirty-seven seconds ‘til Christmas, Isabella!” she little sister Samantha cried.

“Santa will be here before you know it!” Isabella said, smiling. She got up and went to the kitchen to reload her mug with marshmallows. Isabella looked at the clock on the oven. It said 7:33. Carter should have announced the countdown by now. She walked back to the living room.

“It’s my turn!” said Carter.

“No, it’s my turn!” said Samantha.

“Hey!” Isabella said, “Why are you two fighting? Don’t you know Santa’s watching? You have to be careful!”

“Sorry, Isabella,” Samantha said, hanging her head.

“Yeah. Really sorry,” said Carter.

“Don’t worry,” Isabella said. “You guys are good all year. I little tiny fight won’t make you lose all your presents. Using canned soup as paint on the walls will make you lose all your presents.”

Samantha and Carter smiled and giggled.

“We would never do that,” said Samamtha.

Isabella smiled. “Okay, you two. Let’s get out the milk and cookies for Santa.”

“Don’t forget the carrots for his reindeer,” Carter said.

“I would never,” said Isabella.

After everyone was tucked in, Isabella snuck back to the living room to watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with her parents. By 9:17, Isabella’s eyes felt like they weighed a million pounds. She went to bed, thinking about silver bells, presents, and Rudolph’s red nose.

Isabella awoke to Samantha and Carter jumping on top of her yelling “Wake up, Isabella! Wake up! It’s Christmas! We wanna open our presents!”

“All right, all right. Let’s go,” she said.

“Yay!” they yelled. They ran out into the living room. Then, it was more silent than it had ever been in the house. Even more silent than when they were watching Spongebob. Isabella walked in. Samantha and Carter were standing in front of the tree, staring. Isabella looked at the tree. There were no presents under it. Not a single one.

“Where are all the presents?” Carter asked.

“Santa forgot us,” whispered Samantha.

After an hour of crying, Samantha and Carter crawled into bed for a nap. They were tired. Probably from all of that crying, Isabella thought. Mom slept with Samantha and Dad slept with Carter. Isabella sat on the couch and watched Frosty the Snowman. While Frosty was melting, she heard a faint sound. Like jingle bells.

“We’re a go!” someone said. Then an elf fell into the fireplace. “Ooh! Ouch! Hot!” he said. He looked at Isabella’s shocked face. “Hello, miss. You must be Isabella,” he said.

Isabella tried to speak, but all that came out was a squeak.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Let me introduce myself. I’m Jingles. Santa’s head elf. I’m here to deliver the presents he forgot to.”

“Why did he forget?”

“We had a sudden Naughty to Nice Change. Sent the whole place into an uproar.”

“Oh,” Isabella said. Even thought she had no idea what Jingles was talking about.

A big sack fell into the fireplace. Jingles dragged it out. “Here are your presents,” he said.

“Thank you, Jingles!” Isabella said.

“No problem!” he said, “Just another day doin’ my job!”

Isabella arranged the presents under the tree. She ran into Samantha and Carter’s room.

“You guys, Santa came while you were asleep! Your presents are under the tree!”

“Yay!” they yelled. “He did come!”

“I told you he would never forget you,” Isabella said.

Christmas wishes

A few days ago, the local newspaper dedicated a few of their pages to children’s letters to Santa. It’s been a tradition with the News-Leader ever since I can remember, and I applaud them for it. Not only are the letters informative and at times very touching, they also bring back a little nostalgia. I was six when my letter to Santa appeared in the newspaper. I knew then I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.

If you look at these letters every year, and I do, you realize some things. First, toys have changed over the years. Footballs and baseball gloves have been replaced by i-Pods and Playstations. Things are a lot more electronic now. Still, there are presents that defy time and reach across generations. I was happy to see that both doll babies and Legos were still in high demand.

But though the toys have changed, the children haven’t. Say what you want about test scores being lower than they were twenty years ago or kids being more lethargic than they once were. Kids are still kids, and always will be. This is a good thing.

And you realize this, too: these letters to Santa could well be prayers to God. They are full of longings and wishes, pleas and hope, all directed to someone they know can help them. And the sorts of things these kids ask for aren’t really all that different than mine.

Things like faith in the midst of doubt. Take Jackson, for instance:

“Are you real, Santa? Or are you a phony? People say you are, some say not. I don’t know if you are, but when I’m older I’m going to find out…I hope your real that’s my belief…But one thing I want to do, to make proof that Santa’s real. So I can keep my belief.”

I’m right there with you, Jackson. “I believe, help my unbelief,” said the man to Jesus. And so say we all.

There is also the nagging sense that I’m not measuring up. “I hope you think I have been good this year,” says Sarah. A sentiment echoed by a lot of other kids in a lot of other letters. Some are more honest: “Sometimes I’m good, but sometimes I’m bad,” wrote Kevin. Aren’t we all? Which is the point, I think. We’re not good enough to deserve all the things we ask, and yet there they are, under the tree every year. Why? Because Santa knows even though we’re not so good sometimes, we’re still worth much. To kids, this sort of thing is called love. To adults, it’s called grace.

Of course, prayers are not all about me. There are plenty of other people who need help, too. They range from the small (“I wish you can help my mom get the tree out of the attic,” writes Megan) to the big (“All I want is my six teeth and my papa to feel better. I want my Meme to get to Maryland fine, and my family together for the holidays”–Jasmine).

And then there are the prayers that are said out of pain (“My daddy back. My daddy leave and we lonely have mommy, me and my dog”–Brittney).

There are also the ones said out of pure love (“I know this is going to be a bad Christmas for some kids. so I want you to give my presents to the kids who won’t be getting anything this year. God bless everyone!”–ZayVon).



I’m not sure if all those letters were answered the way the kids wanted them. That’s okay. Not all of our prayers get answered that way, either. But even if they weren’t, I feel pretty confident that all those kids will be writing letters again next year. Santa always come through in the end.

God, too.