I Believe in Santa Claus

It is the best feeling ever. Waking up Christmas morning, quickly pulling up some thick socks and jumping into a sweatshirt, frantically brushing my teeth, running into all my sisters' rooms while waiting for Papa to turn on the string of lights before we head downstairs into the warm twinkling living room. "Chrimma" as my dad refers to it always possessed a magically real quality, just like when I still believed in Santa Claus. I was a late comer in the whole Santa Claus thing; I truly believed he existed until I was in the fourth grade. This was just unheard of at my time of discovery. All my friends had left the belief behind, along with their gullible sparkling eyes and Christmas Eve dreams of reindeer. But I just couldn't let go. My oldest sister planted that deepest darkest fear right before me the day she asked me "Why don't all the starving children in Ethiopia get presents, Libba?" I ran to Mama who was outside hanging laundry. It must have been early Fall; months to prepare for His arrival on Christmas morning, lists to write and visions to venture of his incredible flight bringing color to that morning. "Mama," I demanded, "don't lie to me, is Santa Claus real?" "Do you think he's real, honey?" she replied. That was all she kept responding with, as I asked her over and over, becoming more and more frustrated, angry that this day had even happened. Now there was doubt. And, I couldn't take any of it back. Something changed that Christmas, something that introduced the feeling of disappointment, of fear that nothing else had meaning, was worth living for, if there was no magic. My parents gave me a red sweatshirt that Christmas. It had a picture of Santa Claus on the front; his huge head filling the red cotton, white-twirled beard that ran down the middle and up around the sides of his face. He was there. Big. And Smiling. Above him it read "I believe in Santa Claus." That was the only day I wore it.
This past Christmas was lovely. I spent the morning sipping Mimosas with my sisters, parents, and new husband. The strings of light were sparkling more than ever. They seem to shine more every year they're hung. I realized in that moment, smelling clementines, hearing orchestral Christmas hymns in the background, a crackling fire at my back, that the magic was still there. All these years since Santa Claus had died to me slowly transferred all that wonder and excitement, enchantment and joy into a feeling that endured year after year. I was no longer naive, a kid ignorant of pain and difficult times. I was an adult who had survived them and was still surviving them everyday. I had started to understand the power of good when there was bad in the picture; it's ability to make it all somehow totally worth living. My husband I was lucky to have, my sisters who I had grown to become best friends with, and my parents who raised me well and let me go warmed the room. I believed in the love that surrounded me, the quality of a life that I created, the gratefulness I felt for all the good that shone under that Christmas tree. I still believed in Santa Claus. Now, if only I could find that sweatshirt.