One Lump or Two?

“Mom. You have some explaining to do.”

There was a time, years ago, when I arriving home meant that I had 10 minutes of my own. To unload the baggage of the day, both figurative and literal. To wash away the day’s drag on my face. To pull my long locks into clipped submission. To strip out of my polished veneer and into my beloved pajamas. To decompress.

But there is no defensive line to run interference.

If there was, I wouldn’t be standing two feet inside the back door, my aching feet screaming for release, my back threatening to collapse under the weight of the my work, my eyes burning with exhaustion, and a determined boy standing between me and bra-less freedom. And right behind him, his formidable younger sister.

“What is … this?”

This is, apparently, the end of innocence. Mine and his and possibly hers. Because if I had been paying attention to the pile of holiday books that come out of hiding every year I would have noticed the shiny one. The shiny one titled “Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Holidays.” The shiny one that should have come with a warning to keep out of the reach of children.

“It says right here that there is no Santa Claus. See? It says ‘Santa Claus is really all the parents in the world.’ And right here it says ‘The truth is that mom and dad buy all of your presents at the mall …’ Is this true? Is there no Santa Claus?”

The angry glare on his face and the quiver of her lip are swimming in my teary eyes and all of the words that I knit together in anger and sadness and joy and laughter have suddenly vanished. I am not ready for this.

“Sweetheart, I don’t think I like that book.”

“You didn’t answer. Is it true?”

“I believe in Santa. How else would Mommy get stuff in her stocking?”

“But you like everything you get.”

“Not true. I once got a shirt I hated. And a pair of jammies I definitely did not like. And I don’t like malls.”

I distinctly remember the year that the man in the red suit became my Dad. It was mid-summer and I saw the fur-trimmed suit peeking out of a black bag at the top of my parents closet. And Dad never seemed to be there on Christmas Eve when Santa stopped by. So I, with the authority of a child, promptly informed my younger brother that there was, indeed, no Santa Claus. And standing here watching my children, I remember my own disappointment and my brother’s quivering lip. It wasn’t that the man wasn’t real. It wasn’t that we received any less in our stockings or under the tree.

It was that something magical ended. And it isn’t just that I am not ready for the magic to end again – it’s that I wish I could find a way to give them back the years when the magic was dulled by sadness and anger. To hang on for just a little while longer to the laughter and purity of a Christmas morning when Santa is something more than presents under the tree.

To hang on to the magic in the air.

Lying beside him in the dark later that night, I hear myself in the not-so-little boy who is far too wise for his age, the quiver in his voice and the wet tears on his cheek.

“Mom, tell me the truth. Is Santa real?”

“Sweetheart, I told you I would never lie to you. I have never seen Santa, but I do believe in the idea of Santa and the magic of Christmas. Sometimes when we believe in something, it’s more than just a person or a thing.”

“It isn’t nice to make people believe something that isn’t real.”

“You’re right. It isn’t a nice feeling to believe in something and then find out it isn’t real or it isn’t true, and Mommy has felt that way before when she believed in something. But you have to believe in more than just what you see, and that’s what is magical about Christmas.”

“Do you really believe in Santa?”

“Ummmm … YES. How else would I get presents in my stocking?”

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too, lovely boy.”

It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ‘til his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.