During this time of year, I always seem to reflect back to my childhood and the years my children were small. While I understood why we had Christmas and loved hearing the stories about the birth of Jesus, the second part of Christmas was absolutely magical. As an only child, I probably believed in Santa longer than most. I think I was around 9 before my best gal pal Mary put it in my head that there was no Santa.

Deciding each year on my “Santa gift”, was a big deal for me. It usually involved a doll of some kind but I remember one year I could not make up my mind. I think I told each Santa that I visited that year a different doll. Finally my mom told me that I had to make up my mind because I was confusing Santa’s helpers. My mom would always get the big Wishbook catalog in November and I couldn’t wait to look at all the toys. My favorite pages were the baby doll pages. Would it be a doll that talked, peed into a diaper, cried real tears, danced like a ballerina, or wound up and moved like a real baby? What to do, what to do.

Then there were the Christmas lights. My dad was not a put lights on our house kind of guy. In fact, I think my mom only talked him into it once. But he would take me all over town to look at the lights on the houses of other people. In fact, we did it a lot. There was one house that really went all out and they even opened their garage which had been turned into Santa’s workshop. Cars would line up for blocks to just drive by. Our major department store would put up a huge window display with puppets that was also one of my favorite things to see at Christmas.

Our Christmas tree until I was in 4^th grade was one of those silver trees with red and blue ornaments. I can remember helping my mother every year put those silver shiny sticks into the pole and adorning the tree with red and blue ornaments. I thought everyone had a silver tree. Boy was Ishocked when I found out they didn’t. The following year I talked my mom into getting an artificial GREEN tree. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. The next year, my mom and I attempted to spray snow on it with the cans of snow you could buy to flock your own tree. I think we had to throw it away after that Christmas but bought an even nicer artificial green tree the next year. It is interesting how we never discussed getting a “real” tree. Just wasn’t the thing to do in the 70’s.

Christmas Eve was the night I could open one gift and it seems it was always new jammies, which I loved. Trying to get to sleep was difficult because I knew Santa was out driving around in his sleigh. I was always a bit concerned about how he was going to get into my house because we did not have a chimney.   Laying in my bed waiting for the sandman to put me to sleep, I tried very hard to hear the jingle bells of the sleigh. Sometimes I would get up and peek out my bedroom window looking for Rudolph’s red nose. Sometimes I even saw it! Of course now I’m pretty sure that was a plane in the sky, but as a child who REALLY believed, it was exciting.

Now the magic really happened on Christmas morning when I would get up and wonder quietly into the living room to find that Santa had been there. He had even eaten the cookies I left out for him. Squealing into my parent’s room I would go. He came, he came!!!!!   Oh what a feeling.

So having the wonderful Christmas memories I had as a child, I of course wanted my children to have that same magical experience. The only difference is that I have to be the one to pull that off. That is a lot of pressure year after year to get just what they wanted and get it under that tree without them knowing it. I wonder if my mom felt the same way. Well I am very proud to say that I managed to continue the tradition and was never caught. My children got up every Christmas morning to the magic of Santa and as excited as they were, my heart would swell with the absolute love I felt for them and knowing I had made their day. That is when I began to understand that giving was even more fun than getting and each year I would work even harder to make it more magical for them.

The last little bit of magic I got to dole out at Christmas was when my son was in high school. Years after they stopped believing in Santa, I would always ask my kids to select one special gift that could be from “Santa”. I would wrap it up, put a tag on it from Santa and they would open it on Christmas morning. Now my son is a massive “gamer” and he loves Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo and whatever else is out there. This particular Christmas, the newest and greatest game system was coming out and it was the Xbox 360. That is what Craig said he wanted from Santa. I looked high and low for this. His dad in Oklahoma City looked high and low for this. Nothing. They sold out like hotcakes and there was a nationwide shortage. Craig knew this and that there was a 99.99% chance that Santa would not be able to deliver this year. He took it in stride, which absolutely broke my heart. Even at 17, I wanted Christmas to still be magical for him. I was so disappointed that the magic was not going to happen.

Two days before Christmas, I am in our local Wal-Mart picking up groceries for Christmas dinner when I decided to just walk through the gaming department. I casually glanced at the case where the Xbox should have been and noticed that there were two items that looked like Xboxes. I stopped and looked again, read the box which said “Xbox”.  Were my eyes deceiving me? Was this a cruel joke? I grabbed a sales associate and asked if they had any Xboxes and she said no. Then I asked her to follow me. I pointed to the two boxes behind the glass case and said, “What are those?” She replied, “Those are Xboxes. I guess we got a couple in.” OMG. Is she kidding me? I stood my ground and said, “I need one of those immediately.” Then someone came up behind me and asked for the other one. Talk about timing, or was it “magic”. I was going to be able to give Craig a magical Christmas after all.

Keith wrapped the package for me in a very large box, inside of a smaller box then another smaller box until the final box, THE XBOX! For as long as I live, the look on my son’s face was the most magical of all. It was a Christmas miracle.

This year Keith and I are traveling to Little Rock to spend Christmas with my daughter and her family. I get to sit back and watch how Loni and Charles create the magic for Max and Molly. I can’t wait to see their little faces light up on Christmas morning when they realize that Santa came, ate the cookies and drank the milk they left him. The magic of Christmas continues.