When I was a little girl, there was no better holiday than Christmas, and the promise of Christmas always began at Thanksgiving. The air became more clear (except for the glittery fairy dust that only believers could see but acted as an enhancement to reality), people’s hearts had more room in them, and the magic of Santa Claus simply lifted me. Santa Claus could come into my home, big and hearty and well… big… laugh at the foot of my bed (my mom said he did), leave me a special gift and I would never wake up. And he did the same thing to every child’s home in the entire world! In one night! He had reindeer who flew! He was somehow connected to the birth of Jesus and the three wise men, but I was never sure exactly how, except for the present thing.
I’m pretty sure I believed in Santa Claus until I was forty-three (kidding, but I was way older than most of my friends)—and just between us, I’m still not entirely convinced he doesn’t exist. In my secret heart of secret hearts, I would not be surprised to run into him in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. He would smile at me, not say a word. His eyes would twinkle like you know they do. He would take a minute in his mad dash around the world to give me a quick hug, then he would do that placing a finger at the side of his nose thing and be gone, leaving behind only the supercharged air of focused love.
But that perrenial favorite day of the year eventually changed. The amazing, magical holiday of my youth became the day that it was my responsibility to make sure everyone else who I loved, if not full of amazement and magic, were at least full of food. Particular food. A huge bowl of chili would not work. Seven-layer dip? Foggedaboudid. I had bars to meet and exceed everywhere I looked. I went from feeling fulfilled to feeling anxious. Did I get them the right present? Did I make the dressing just the way they like it? Even with the amazing support of my husband in finding wonderful, convenient foods to serve, it felt stressful. Not the glittery magic from my youth.
But I still want—badly—for Christmas to be my favorite day of the year.
So I’m stopping. Just stopping. I’ll cook. I’ll decorate. Sometimes for me, sometimes for others. But I will trust that it’s up to each one of us—up to each one of the people I love—to create a little of their own magic. To sit in front of a lit Christmas tree and feel the gift of giving, the reason for peace, the magic of a big man who has a twinkle in his eye.
I will find him again this year, and I won’t feel responsible for making everyone feel the perfection of this day. I can’t do it. I don’t have the power. But they do, if they want. It’s a choice.
About Peg Brantley
A Colorado native, Peg Brantley is a member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and Sisters In Crime. She and her husband make their home southeast of Denver, and have shared it with the occasional pair of mallard ducks and their babies, snapping turtles, peacocks, assorted other birds, foxes, a deer named Cedric and a bichon named McKenzie. Peg's newest novel, THE MISSINGS, is a police procedural.
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