When I was a child, Christmas was the most magical time of the year. We never got huge piles of presents or anything, but alongside the clothes and books there were always some toys. Because we seldom got new toys, it was more special on that one day of the year when we did.
I remember the big yellow Tonka dump truck, my first train set, the year that most kids got a Big Wheel and I got a Three Speed Super Cycle (a Big Wheel on steroids), and I remember -- as though rising out of the fog -- the first Christmas with my baby sister, when I still thought all the presents were for me.
As I got older, I always tried to stay awake on Christmas Eve to see Santa deliver the gifts. I wanted to know how he could land the sleigh and all those reindeer on our sloped roof. But try as I might, I never was able to stay awake long enough to see the magic happen. And so it remained magic.
I was seven years old when I learned the truth about Santa. In some ways, that was when my childhood began to end. It ended completely when I was thirteen and my father died of his fifth heart attack, a little more than a month before Christmas.
That year was somber. There was still a tree -- the first one I cut myself -- and a few presents, but without my father the holiday ceased to have any meaning, any magic. Ever since then I have largely avoided the holiday. I thought of myself as a Scrooge or a Grinch. I pretended not to care, but mostly I couldn't face the pain that had been so long buried.
There have been isolated good years, mostly when I was seeing Celeste back in college and shortly after. Her family did Christmas in a big way and made me feel included. I never really got to thank them for that when she and I broke up.
But something changed this year. Although I didn't celebrate the holiday the way most people do, I somehow let it into my heart.
Last night before I went to bed I sat out on the deck and looked at the lights on some of the neighboring houses. I could feel the anticipation I once felt as a child, the sense of magic. Some small place inside me opened and allowed those old feelings into awareness.
I don't know what made this year different than the others.
I do know that I have been working for more than two years now to reconnect with that inner child, that vulnerable and open version of myself who believes in magic, who takes joy in the mystery of things -- who feels joy at all. The process has been long and arduous, and it cost me a relationship that I valued more than any I have ever had.
But I feel the first major opening, the crack in the wall that provides inspiration to continue the process. I know now that I am on the right path, that if I persist and follow the path wherever it leads I can once again allow that curious and tender child back into my life.
That's the best Christmas present I have ever received.
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Congrats and Merry Christmas.
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