CPUnk I write right. Right? Aye.

Santa didn’t make it this year — but he was here anyway…

Christ­mas day is over, 2009.  It’s very late at night, and as I went to put the kids to bed, I saw the rib­bon that is tied at the top of the stairs as an early morn­ing bar­ri­cade, hang­ing from a sin­gle knot, hav­ing done it’s job and been par­tially removed so kids could come downstairs.

For years, ever since our kids could walk, Santa has been the secret worker of mir­a­cles who tied that rib­bon, ever so qui­etly, at the top of the stairs.  That giant, bright red bow was always the first thing the kids would see when they woke up — a promise from a very won­der­ful per­son that not only had he been there and yes indeed it is Christ­mas!, but that they should stay where they were until mom and dad appear to bring them down­stairs.  That bow, more than any­thing else, means Santa to me.

When I was a young child — per­haps five or six — my brother decided to set me straight on Christ­mas.  I remem­ber it the way you might remem­ber the details of a car acci­dent.  Being an ancient seven years older than I, he called me to my par­ents bed­room one day while the folks were at work, and sit­ting on the cor­ner of their bed, he informed me of facts I won’t dis­cuss here.  My sis­ter had half-heartedly tried to stop him, and couldn’t believe he was doing it — but he did it any­way, and I was hurt by that.  To this day, I do con­sider it a self­ish act, and I don’t know why my child­hood had to be cut off like that at a whim.  I can still remem­ber the shock, and the hurt.  To this day.  I’m pretty con­fi­dent that he didn’t mean to do some­thing so severe.  But he did.  Right through my heart.

I didn’t real­ize until I was very much older that my par­ents, upon dis­cov­er­ing what he’d done — made a rule that as long as I wanted to hang stock­ings, we’d do the whole thing.  Every year, I’d be asked — well into my teens — and every year I’d just say “Sure, why not?” … not real­iz­ing that it had become some form of pun­ish­ment for my other sib­lings.  It wasn’t until I was some­where around 17 or 18 that I real­ized it — when my sis­ter yelled, “Oh come ON!” … I was unaware until that moment that I was a bur­den on their Christ­mas.  I never wanted to do stock­ings again after that — or much else regard­ing hope, inno­cence, child­hood, or imag­i­na­tion that involved trust.

So, when my kids were born, and Santa started vis­it­ing our house — I for one, was sur­prised to be ecsta­tic to have him arrive.  What a joy to have his foot­prints in our fire­place (lit­er­ally, one year, it would seem), to see the eaten cook­ies, to find scraps of eaten car­rots that had fallen from the roof and onto the lawn.  How great to just know that if my kids asked for some­thing specif­i­cally from Santa — it was all but guar­an­teed to be deliv­ered.  The ride has been won­der­ful, like sit­ting on top of a bag of toys, fly­ing through the sky, fear­less and open-heartedly embrac­ing the dan­ger­ous light­ing bolt called Joy.

But this is the year.  The one in which the ques­tion has been asked in earnest, and the expla­na­tions were given.  You do it to show that you can be trusted, because it’s time — but you don’t want to do it, I assure you.  Some­where, at the edge of my imag­i­na­tions, on a snowy bor­der between me and the fan­tas­tic — I thought a gate was gen­tly clos­ing again… but this time, I was happy to find out it hasn’t — this time, I think I finally got it.

As I reached up and untied the rib­bon, which is now just a rib­bon again — I real­ized that I’d been given a won­der­ful gift … a joy to cel­e­brate the arrival of such a great per­son for so many years; such a mem­ber of the fam­ily, such a per­son of Love.  I real­ized that while I have been forced this year to take the train­ing wheels off the fan­tas­tic notions that swirl around Christ­mas, I and my fam­ily are begin­ning a more sig­nif­i­cant jour­ney together regard­ing the true gifts of Christ­mas, the truly mirac­u­lous Per­son involved, the most won­der­ful Friend who will not leave or fade away.

In life, we are all so des­per­ate to grow up; that is, of course, until we’re old enough to be des­per­ate to regain our youth.  Things hap­pen to shat­ter our inno­cence, and things hap­pen to regain it … but through it all, one thing holds con­stant for every­one, belief or not — we want to know.

In walk­ing through these years with Santa, and shar­ing the Won­der and the Joy with my chil­dren, a part of me that had died too soon was res­ur­rected — and I under­stood, in the small­est ways, what it means to be whole again in places I thought I’d lost.  I cher­ish the time I’ve had in the snow with that won­der­ful man … and I cher­ish the fact that God made it pos­si­ble for me to have that piece of Joy for so many years, to find it again with my kids — deliv­ered by some­one as won­der­ful and real as Santa.

This Christ­mas, more than any other, I’ve dis­cov­ered that know­ing is a process of becom­ing more than you thought pos­si­ble, by accept­ing more than you thought rea­son­able.   What I know now is a Joy I didn’t know before, and that is an expe­ri­ence that can­not be taken away.

Faith is what Christ­mas has always been about, and should be about… it is not the process of prov­ing how much we’ve grown by dis­prov­ing all the del­i­cate dreams of the peo­ple around us — instead, it’s the process of show­ing just how mature we really are in embrac­ing those ideas that are so sim­ple to dis­credit in a ratio­nal world, but so invin­ci­ble when we let our hearts open just a little.

To know, I first had to believe … but when I couldn’t, I watched the Joy-filled eyes of my chil­dren believ­ing, and decided to believe because they did … and when I did that — I tasted true Joy.  To real­ize, in spite of all my jad­ed­ness, that I have truly received Joy, well that fills me with Won­der… and those two Gifts are mine to keep… for­ever — placed in my stock­ing by Some­one who Loves me, a lot.

There are plenty of ways to shat­ter a dream — plenty of ways to sneer, like an angry 12-year old boy, at the beliefs of oth­ers — but at the end of the day, it is only the ones who Believe that get to par­take in the Won­der and Joy of Santa… every­one else gets the lump of coal that comes from know­ing better.

So many peo­ple feel that the process of under­stand­ing the Mys­ti­cal comes first from know­ing and then believ­ing, that it is impos­si­ble to build a frame­work of trust­wor­thy pre­dictabil­ity if you don’t start with what you know and build out­ward.  But, while that may be true in things of real­ity, for things of the fan­tas­tic, the oppo­site is true.

In Faith, you must take the child-like step to Believe, even when it makes no sense … then, and only then, you may very well find your­self show­ered in expe­ri­ences you wouldn’t trade for the world.

So, for any­one, any­where, who looks up at the sky in the hopes of glimps­ing a face that mat­ters… Merry Christ­mas.  I, for one, can assure you — yes, He does exist…