An Irrational Christmas
This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
there’d have been no room for the child. - Madeline L’Engle
Image courtesy of Unsplash
Magic and wonder fill the Advent and Christmas season, especially when we’re surrounded by children, whose innocent and angelic faces turn toward the silver twinkling of a tree in the nighttime. We take pictures of such scenes, hoping to capture forever the sheer yet ephemeral moment of joy and delight they experience.
Nothing quite compares to children’s enchantment at Christmas. It’s infectious. It permeates the entire household and infuses its occupants with a lightness not typically felt throughout the rest of the year.
As our children grow older and are exposed to outside, “worldlier” influences, shedding innocence along the way, some of that incredulity begins to fade. Doubts and questions and logic often take over, tamping down the marvel of younger days.
In my house, a mishap with “Happy,” our Elf on the Shelf, resulted in a nearly catastrophic cataclysm. It’s made very clear to children that the single most important rule regarding Elf on the Shelf is not to touch them. My daughter lived in constant fear of accidentally touching Happy, causing his magic to disappear and him never to return.
And that’s exactly what happened. Happy landed one fine morning on the staircase bannister, and she accidentally knocked him off. What followed was a wailing, pitiful mess of a girl who wanted nothing more than to see Happy return the next day. A note attached to the elf that night, before his return to the North Pole, assured Santa that the contact had been incidental and that Izzy should stay on the “nice list.”
Thankfully, he returned the next morning, his enchantment still intact.
But the world came knocking again the following Christmas, and an interrogation of sorts occurred after an episode of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” of all things.
There was a “revelation” in the holiday episode. “Tea” was spilled, shall we say. Izzy asked the question parents never want to answer about Christmastime, and my honest response prompted a fit of sobbing, a slamming of the bedroom door, and an end of sorts to a charmed childhood.
The best part, however, was what happened 30 minutes later when she flung the door open, stared at me through tears and sobbed, “And the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, too????”
Had I not been blindsided by the whole affair, I’d like to think I would have had the wherewithal to have taken a page from my husband’s parental playbook and introduced to her the legend of St. Nicholas, a Christian bishop from the turn of the 4th century, who provided for the poor and sick and serves as the inspiration for our modern day incarnation of Santa Claus. Maybe I could have massaged the situation a bit and saved some heartache?
As easy as it is to get bogged down in the banality and conventionality of the season, preparing for parties, decorating our homes, and making sure our purchased gifts measure up to somebody else’s invisible standards, rationality and practicality can easily take over and subsume all notions of selflessness, sacrifice, and the divine.
Image courtesy of Unsplash
If the legend of St. Nicholas allows us to practice benevolence and softness, then yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus.
But more importantly, there is a Savior who embodies all of the mysticism and spirituality we fear to lose sight of with the growth of our children. An irrational birth and existence in the midst of a rational and logical world was without a doubt the inspiration for St. Nicholas and should be ours as well.
May you have a completely irrational Christmas where love blooms bright and wild in our hearts.
