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I Know That You Know (And When You Know That I Know, Still There Will Be Magic)

I love this season of innocence. Even when it’s not so jolly. This weekend we cut down our Christmas tree and I was reminded of the look on Owen’s face in a picture I took last December, a picture I now love.

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I was reminded of how hard things were mid-December, last year. How un-jolly it all was, during that particular week. And nothing tragic or life-altering happened. Rather, life happened. Sickness. Deadlines. Tantrums. Rejections. And then I was reminded how Christmas, still, ended up being magical.

This week a friend and I briefly chatted over email about the difficulties that come with parenting when so much in the world seems wrong. Bigger wrongs than colds that will end. Deadlines that will result in paychecks. Tantrums that exist because we’re lucky enough to have a child. Rejections that happen because I was able to write some words on a page. But it’s hard to appreciate the beauty of the holidays when beauty is so very much lacking elsewhere. So many elsewheres.

But kids, they make it easy. Easier.

They make it harder, too, yes, but mostly easier.

This week we decorated our too-big Christmas tree (if you turn sideways you can walk from our entry into our living room). And when we were nearly done, I looked over to see Owen sitting on the bottom step of our staircase, staring at the tree with the most content smile on his face. His eyes reflected the tree lights like something out of a Hallmark special. All was right in his world. All was bright. Despite.

I know Sophie knows about Santa. She doesn’t know I know. She’s not ready. She’s guarding the knowledge tight in her fists, much like she does when she hunts for fairies. She’s unwilling to let go.

At first, this bothered me, She’s 7. I had it all figured out at 5. In one fell swoop I learned about Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. The sadness was slight, that of a soft sigh. And then I relished in knowing a secret my siblings did not. I felt grown-up.

The boys drill me about Santa constantly. “How does he get down our chimney if it’s closed up?” “How does he sneak around the hallways of apartment buildings and hotels?” “What about kids who don’t have a fireplace?” “If books say Santa goes all over the world then what about people who don’t celebrate Christmas? How is he going all around the world if many people in other parts of the world don’t celebrate Christmas?”

I half-answer. Change the subject. Wish they would just come out and ask, “Is Santa real?” And when they do I plan to answer as my parents did. “What do you think?” I’ve learned that coming to conclusions on one’s own always softens the blow.

But no one asks. Not the boys. Not Sophie. Sophie doesn’t even ask questions about the Big Man anymore. She answers the boys’ questions. She has an answer for everything. She’d scream his reality from the rooftops if she could. And so I let her. That is her realization to come to. Not mine to take. At least, I hope that’s the right thing to do.

And when they know, they all know, and they know that I know they know, I’ve learned this: I’ll still find magic. Because even with all of our life’s little wrongs and the world’s big wrongs, there’s so much magic, and innocence, during the holidays.

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There’s the taste of bacon-wrapped chestnuts and buckeye candies and fancy cheeses we don’t normally buy and champagne. There are candles and white lights and colored lights and twinkly lights and just so much light. There are thoughtful gifts, homemade gifts, the gift of time spent with those we love. There are three kids singing the wrong words to Christmas songs while I play on our out-of-tune piano, rusty in my memory, missing notes. There are messes. So many big, beautiful messes. Christmas cookie-making messes. The mess of pine needles everywhere, always, no matter how often we water the tree. The mess of wrapping gifts in brown paper and decorating them with stickers and markers and glitter pens. The mess of making a quadruple recipe of Chex Mix and the mess of addressing too many Christmas cards and the mess of extra coffee cups in the morning when family comes in from out of town. And with those messes come the hugs. So many hugs. Great-grandmother hugs. Grandparent hugs. Sibling hugs. Aunt and uncle hugs. Parent hugs. Cousin hugs. Niece hugs. Husband hugs.

So during the holidays, I let in cheeriness and maybe even a little cheesiness. I let in some make-believe. I let in some sappy moments despite the realities both at home and out in the hard, beautiful, cold and light-filled world. I let myself soften while watching a little guy sit on the steps and stare with a small smile at a decorated tree. I let another little guy question me incessantly about the logistics of Santa’s big night. I let a 7-year-old think that I think she still believes.


“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.”
—Norman Vincent Pe

Related posts:

  1. A Visiting Santa First
  2. The Garland.
  3. Visiting Santa
This entry was written by kara, posted on December 9, 2015 at 5:59 pm, filed under All and tagged believe, christmas, happiness, James, magic, Owen, parenting, reality, santa, Sophie. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
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     Relationship tip: Don’t tell your partner that “this is your favorite part of Christmas” and immediately follow it with “I want to do this with you every year until we die” while he’s experiencing a thousand needle pricks due to being over-meticulous about the lights while you’re sitting on the steps drinking Chardonnay (with a couple ice cubes) out of a Christmas mug with a sexy reindeer on it (Vixen, of course).  Picked the kids up from school and took a beautiful drive to a 100-acre tree farm in Ohio (thank you, friends, for the recommendation!). Way better than last year’s last-minute Kroger lot tree. Andy may grumble about my refusal to get an artificial tree every year but he said he had fun today. He secretly loves the long drive and the sawing and the cost and the prickles and the tying it to the van and the falling needles due to our neglectful watering all December long .... Our antenna is broken so instead of listening to Christmas songs on the radio I serenaded the family the whole way home. And yelled LOOK! CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!! every time we passed a festive house. I don’t know about everyone else but I loved today.  My mom has made many Christmas bags over the years — she and my dad wrap all their presents in them to reduce waste. Some of her bags feature little surprises like this — that’s me, Katy and Kyle, 1980-something.  My sister and Tom hosted a beautiful and delicious Thanksgiving. I’m sad to leave! Thankful for family, sweet sweet potatoes, hikes, wine, warm fires, early birthday celebrations, plays, and new and old faces willing to seek seashells hidden around the house with the kids.   This world can be so cruel. And our actions ... my worry lines deepen daily. A trick I use to keep myself from crawling into bed and refusing to come out (which I’ve tried, with little success) is to remind myself of something my mom once told me: Soldiers, she once read, were sent a recording of children laughing — nothing more, just happy squeals. And it helped them all. It’s genius, really. Who doesn’t like the sound of children laughing? I like to think about all the little things we humans share in common. Take fire, for example. It draws people in, for survival in the early days, yes, but still, the next time you’re close to (purposeful) fire, watch how people are attracted to it, as if we are nothing more than moths drunk on the flames. And although many may ignore it, no one curses a beautiful sunset. Each of us has a least one smell that brings on a good memory. Everyone loves zoo babies. And finally reaching that itch that needs scratching. And the joy of embracing someone they love. We all have a song that gives us goosebumps. And a cat video that makes us laugh. And something that makes us cry, privately. We all share in the goodness of drinking something cold when parched, taking our shoes off after a long day and wrapping ourselves in a blanket when cold. Each of us finds connection in eye contact resulting in unspoken conversation, witnessing a sweet reunion at the train station or airport, and in niceties — waving someone on, a sincere apology, holding open a door. There is privilege in my words, yes, and I know I experience the world quite differently from someone who is, for example, autistic (but I know there are shared experiences there as well). And please don’t mistake this for a “we should all just get along” post. Because some of y’all have beliefs I will fight until the day I die. But this Thanksgiving, especially this Thanksgiving, I’m grateful that we as humans have some things that bind us. For it is there I find hope that we may one day find ourselves on a better path for all humanity. Think this is a stretch? Ask yourself this: Have you ever met anyone who doesn’t like having a back scratcher when they have a hard-to-reach itch? No.  Io was home alone a long time today. He found toilet paper rolls (and a shoe, a watch, a package, two books, a large ice scraper, socks ...). And copious amounts of glitter. If you use your imagination really hard, it’s like glittery snow, all over the first floor of our house. But it’s not glittery snow. It’s all the toilet paper rolls from both baths torn into tiny bits and ACTUAL GLITTER all over the rugs and hardwood and furniture and given that the candle sticks are askew and glittery at one point he must have been ON THE DINING ROOM TABLE in a self-induced frenzied dance of glitter spreading in every creak and crevice of our house. Me, two weeks ago: “He’s such a good puppy! He’s hardly chewed anything!” 🧻✨  Lost electronics for the night, spelling lists with all those tricky silent k’s and b’s, a patchwork dinner of stir-fried rice and veggies and odd chicken and naan (all lazily pulled from the freezer), angry yelling (regretful), a clogged drain, a curse word and then another, a tiny, soft splinter, a (sad) no, a sierra of laundry, and this guy, who stinks. Hoping tonight’s winds blow all these bad vibes away along with the leaves. Grateful to have tomorrow.  Snow meant three separate requests for hot chocolate today, requests I was already on top of thanks to my mama intuition and a grocery run the night before. Most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing during these intense mothering years, especially with the big things, but 11 years in I can finally say I’ve mastered (a few) little things. I’m counting on those adding up in my favor in the long run. ❄️  Snowy Night, by Mary Oliver “Last night, an owl in the blue dark tossed an indeterminate number of carefully shaped sounds into the world, in which, a quarter of a mile away, I happened to be standing. I couldn’t tell which one it was – the barred or the great-horned ship of the air – it was that distant. But, anyway, aren’t there moments that are better than knowing something, and sweeter? Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness. I suppose if this were someone else’s story they would have insisted on knowing whatever is knowable – would have hurried over the fields to name it – the owl, I mean. But it’s mine, this poem of the night, and I just stood there, listening and holding out my hands to the soft glitter falling through the air. I love this world, but not for its answers. And I wish good luck to the owl, whatever its name – and I wish great welcome to the snow, whatever its severe and comfortless and beautiful meaning.”  It’s hard work waiting for the kids to come home from school and play.  Today is my dad’s 65th birthday. All summer long he fills our kitchen (and others’ and the food bank’s) with his garden bounty. Almost every time the boys ask him to play baseball (even if it’s the third time of the day) he says yes. I can’t count the times he’s lent me his truck (and time and hands) to help me move things or pick up my crazy Craigslist finds. He dedicates a ton of time to our Unitarian church (just last week he spent the night there while the church offered shelter from the cold). “No problem” is his response to everything (even if he’s silently rescheduling things to make it work). All summer long he plays baseball with the Cincinnati Dragons and listens/watches the Reds play (and still finds time to watch our kids play). I’m so grateful to have him in my life and today was such a good day. Happy birthday, Dad. ⚾️  Friday night II ❤️  Friday night ❤️  I got a new phone (and I adore the camera, thanks again for your help, @jjmenk !) but I’m changing carriers (to Tello, it’s so inexpensive, check them out!) and apparently my phone number is “porting in” which “can take up to 5 business days” (maybe this is why it’s so cheap) so email me if you need me. Also, Sophie looks way too old in this picture!  Today was a good day.  Every great once in awhile it’s good to test the solidity of your marriage by moving a large piece of furniture, such as a couch with a bed tucked away inside of it and a chaise lounge attached to it. #WeAreStillSpeaking #INeedToUpMyWeightsAtBarre  Happy Halloween! We had two Reds players, a zombie and a black cat this year. Io (you can see him in our front door in one pic) ran away from the door anytime someone knocked wearing a mask.  Sophie went to the other side of town with friends, and the boys wanted to go all on their own, wearing a batting glove on one hand and a baseball glove on the other to keep warm. Everyone refused their winter coats bc they’re ridiculous. And I’m over that argument. So I let them be. The boys collected their candy in their baseball bags.  It was windy and cold but no rain!  Last-minute trip to Neltner’s last week on a gorgeous weekday after school.  Skateboard: 1, Sophie: 0. Thankfully it’s just a buckle fracture so no cast! Ignore the messy house. I have another kid with a fever and another one who had to write an apology letter to our neighbor re his baseball and their car (hopefully there’s no damage). It’s been a (Mon)day!  My grandma’s backyard, fall. We purposefully came after lunch so she wouldn’t feel obliged to cook. So she had dinner ready. Days like today will always be some of my favorites.
    TAP
  • Favorite Essays

    Choosing Compassion in a Culture of Fear

    Seeking the Bigness in the Everyday

    The Love in Trying

    The View from Up High

    Season of Innocence

    The Huffington Post guest post: Apologies to the Parents I Judged Four Years Ago, a TIME's top 10 opinion piece in 2012

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    Changing Love

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