We Are All Santa Claus
Mamacita says: Whether or not you celebrate Christmas has nothing whatsoever to do with being Santa Claus for someone. Call it whatever you wish: just call it something, and go forth and do it. Letting your soul curl up into a ball of resentment because YOUR religion, or lack of such, doesn’t “do” Christmas is a waste of time, a waste of emotion, a waste of heart, a waste of zeal, and a waste of YOU.
“Charity” doesn’t mean “giving to the poor and needy;” it means LOVE, and love covers all bases. Using a belief system to rationalize your own personal whatevers is a cop-out, plain and simple. There are people out there who need you, and to walk on by because they said or did something that “offended” you is . . . okay, I’ll say it: it’s evil. Selfish and evil.
What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? — George Eliot
The three stages of man:
1. He believes in Santa Claus
2. He doesn’t believe in Santa Claus
3. He IS Santa Claus.
That struck me as being funny, and true. And also, even, a little bit sad, and I’m not sure why. Poignancy is always a combination of emotions, and knowing something wonderful is temporary makes us sad, even while we revel in it.
I am Santa Claus. And I do NOT want to ever let the people I love down, at Christmas or any other time. But I also realize that the people we love most have the most potential for hurting. And for being hurt. Any people who are emotionally involved have tremendous power over each other. I hope we all try to use that power only for good.
You know, like Superman. Superman used his powers for good. Unless he was under the influence of kryptonite, in which case he became a flying armegeddon. I’ve met many human kryptonite chunks, working tirelessly to promote only their own beliefs and working just as tirelessly to tear down everybody else’s. They work so hard at destroying that they’ve no time left for building up.
Let us never allow the influence of ‘something else’ to turn us into anything other than good.
“Something else” being possibly another person, or just, something else. “Under the influence” is “under the influence,” whatever outside ‘something else’ is influencing us.
You are Santa Claus for someone. Do not let them down. The people you know, the people you love, the people you know AND love, and people you don’t even know, need you to be Santa Claus. Nameless, faceless children need you. They need you badly. If you’ve got a biscuit, please give someone half.
No belief system in the universe is a reason NOT to be Santa for someone.
And if you are a person who does not believe in this mysterious spirit of generosity we call Santa Claus, then, um, uh, hmmm. . . . . okay, I’ll say it. You are stupid. Grow up and become Santa Claus. Somewhere out there is a child who desperately needs your powers. It might be your own child, or it might be a stranger’s. What difference does it make what child it is? Get out there and make someone happy. Or, at least, happier. Make a difference. Ho ho ho.
I’ll go even farther: If you are the kind of person who gets all huffy and offended and indignant because someone dared to wish you well in a language not suited to your personal belief system, shame on you. You’re angry because someone DARED wish you well? How dare YOU!!!!! How dare you throw someone’s sincere good wishes back into his/her face!!!!!
Now, get out there and make someone happy. If you have no children, go borrow some.
Life is so fleeting; why waste any of it in offended huffiness? We should all be trying our best to add to life, not suck the wonder out of it.
Oh, and fair warning: if you don’t like the tone of this post, suck it up. It’s the first of many, this season, because easily offended people are one of my favorite targets.
They’re the whiny kid on the playground who is good for a show every time he/she doesn’t get his/her own way.
Is that you? I hope not. Such reactions are ugly in a child, but even uglier in an adult. But if it is, I’ll say it again: shame on you.
Santa is a symbol, a representation of a person who lives to help others. He’s a role model for us all.
Bring it on.
Our Children Deserve a Magical Childhood
Mamacita says: James and Lily Potter weren’t the only parents who knew about magic, you know. I love to imagine Christmas at the Burrow, also; Molly and Arthur Weasley, poor as they were, must have given their large family a wonderland of inexpensive dreams-come-true. Hogwarts gave its students a magical Christmas experience, too, as all good teachers and schools do used to do. Authority figures owe it to children to do so.
Parents owe their children some magic. It shouldn’t be an option. Children need magic, and parents can give it to them with not much effort at all.
Parents are magic, you know. ALL parents can do it if they try. We have, in our fingertips and in our heads and in all those old boxes, the power to transform ordinary things into things of magic and wonder. We have the power to transform an ordinary day into a Holiday. There is more than tinsel and glass and molded Hallmark treasures in those boxes. There are memories, stored in those boxes. There is each child’s First Christmas, in those boxes. There is the Christmas we were all too sick to go to Grandma’s, so we had to stay home and entertain each other. There is an ornament from the Christmas of the Emergency Room visit. There are ornaments made of styrofoam and glue and glitter. There is the ornament someone bought in the Chicago airport, just because it caught his eye and he thought someone else might like it. There is the ornament a little girl used to lie under the tree and watch, JUST IN CASE the elves would peek out the window of it and wave at her. There 
is the ornament with sad eyes that a little boy worried about, year after year, and which must be hung in exactly the same spot on the tree – and low, because it’s really, really heavy. I have a Christmas angel made out of a torn purple pillow case and a toilet paper tube, and a piece of that same pillow case with “Oh come holy spit” written on it in black magic marker. It’s worth more to me than anything in Tiffany’s. Erma Bombeck had one, too; when I read about hers I felt kinship! There are ornaments from friends, and ornaments found at yard sales and flea markets. Every ornament on our tree has a history. I know where and when everything on that tree was purchased, or made, or given. A real Christmas fanatic can tell you the circumstances under which almost any ornament on that tree was obtained.
I can look at my tree and see more than just a beautiful twinkling tree. I look at my Christmas tree and I can see all the years of my family’s life, represented on the branches.
I can remember, as a child, sitting on the floor and just staring at our tree. It was almost beyond my comprehension that our house could contain such glowing wonder. It was like magic. My mother created magic, in our house. How did she do it? I still don’t know. I only know that I have tried to create that same magic in my house, for my children, and I hope I have succeeded.
Why do I work so hard, harder even than Clark Griswold, to try and create a magical Christmas? The answer is easy. “Because.”
Power. Parents have power to change a mundane day into a day of wonder. Our children’s memories depend on our willingness to use that power.
Sometimes we are so physically exhausted that it’s difficult to put out the effort. Don’t ever let yourself get caught in that trap. Once you start, it’s easy to continue.
Your children are worth the time. And so are you. Get up from that chair, get those boxes down from wherever they’re stored, and get busy. Make magic for your children.
Otherwise, they won’t know how to make magic for their own children.
Oh, and if you’re one of those parents who doesn’t believe in magic? I hope your children can overcome that, and believe anyway.
Bring it on.
It’s Christmas Eve, Dick! It’s Christmas Eve, Ebenezer!
Mamacita says: I really don’t know how anyone could ever say it better than Charles Dickens, unless it was Ma Ingalls, who assured Laura and Mary that if everyone wanted everyone else to be happy all the time, then every day would be Christmas. I believe this to be absolutely true.
Haven’t you noticed by now that almost every time you hope and wish and strive for someone else’s happiness, you end up happier yourself? Sometimes, not getting what we wanted for Christmas means we get something else that’s even better. As far as I’m concerned, helping and watching others get what THEY wanted is the best part of the season.
It disgusts me out every pore of my very large body bothers me when people keep Christmas contained in a house or – far worse – in a church. Dressing up and hanging out with other dressed-up people all of whom are going home to near-opulence, comparatively speaking, and feeling justified and holy because they went through the motions and recited the words without actually doing anything about them really doesn’t seem like Christmas proper to me. These days, a lot of Christmas services are more like recitals and concerts with divas and prima donnas and spotlighted performers than anything spiritual or meaningful. Gold, frankincense and myrrh were meant to be given away, not draped around the church. How many of those overdressed bedecked people plan to do anything for anyone but themselves this Christmas? I am not impressed by glitzy ceremony and diva performances at church.
I am also disgusted that the very places that most need volunteers and donations are near capacity with the needy, and extremely short-handed with the volunteers on church nights. Shouldn’t those be the very times the most people gather together to DO for others, not just sit around and talk about it?
Preaching to the choir only reassures and reaffirms already-held thoughts and beliefs. Festooning a church with expensive fake greenery and shiny things seems an outrageous use of money that would be better spent supplying a soup kitchen or providing Christmas for several families in the area. On Christmas, why not shut the church’s door and send the church’s people out to actually, physically, help real people in their own areas who are in desperate need?
If all you did this season was decorate, purchase, bake, dress up, party, sing/play/work/plan only at/for church, or sit at home relaxing in front of the TV, shame on you. Next year, try to do better than that. Next year, don’t dress up and head for the mall or the church (unless it’s headquarters for the donations which you are going to help distribute); bundle up and get out there and make Christmas really happen for people who might not know what you’ve known for years. Don’t preach to them; let your actions do that for you. Action, people, not words. Words can be empty. Words ARE empty without accompanying action.
If your church’s Christmas focuses on the shop window glitter, performance, and in-house words/deeds/actions, maybe it’s time to seek a real church – one that has substance behind the glowing windows: a church that encourages its worshipers to walk out of the church and into the lives of the people.
Words are cheap. Action takes effort. Without the effort, Christmas isn’t the only meaningless thing in people’s lives.
Seriously. If your church doesn’t know the names of almost every person in its immediate neighborhood, what good is it? What good is it if it concentrates on sending packages and money overseas and ignores the needy right across the street?
It’s better to do a kindness at home than go afar to burn incense. –Chinese proverb
Heh. She said “dick.”
