What Holiday Magic Can Do

Play the video for some holiday magic!

This is one of the holiday trinket splurges that my family expects of me now. They roll their eyes with each purchase as each and every holiday rolls in. I’ve become my grandmother as my room has grown to hold too many knick-knacks for the shelves to contain them all, so some of them get rotated in and out of boxes. I can see the Toy Story skit now. “Hey, Woody, when did we get put on rotating shifts!?!”

Not all of my purchases have a purpose besides making me laugh or being cute but many do and this one does. First of all, this one reminds me of the magic of life and of the holiday stories we have lost due to the depressing nature of our times and the advancement of technology. Kids are no longer in awe as we were by simple things. They are desensitized by so many techno-wow factors that keep their dopamine receptors primed to their phones and games. But there was a time, and it still comes up, where we even argued over whether things like Christmas were on par with Jesus. We had to switch to saying ‘Happy Holidays” lest we offend someone by saying the word “Christmas” because Jesus was such a bad guy or we may be seen as imposing religion on someone. Christians became hyper-sensitive too. No more Halloween. It’s Fall Festivals and No Satan-Clauses, only birthday cakes for Jesus. And so combine that with everything else, and it’s like the holidays are almost gone–like going from a good juicy burger to one of these real bad no-meat burgers that taste like cardboard (I’m a healthy eater, but you know what I mean when you first try it out–not all brands are good).

A long time ago, I used to get a twinkle in my eye from the twinkles in the snow hills reflecting back the moonlight. Warmth like the spirit of God’s comfort came over me listening to holiday choirs, hearing my mom bake in the kitchen, and wondering how those lights in the Christmas tree managed to get me thinking about the light of the life of all creation. I was a hyper little kid but holiday magic and its simple beauty had me starting some communications with myself, nature, and God in some beautiful ways–Santa, Jesus, Silver Bells, Christmas Trees, and all of it. I would calm down, reflect, and often drift asleep thinking of these things simply because of the magic around me reflecting the mystery of the magic of love and life itself. We forget that with all our “offenses” and extreme forms of political correctness.

In addition, my father would go all out to make us think Santa had come to bring us presents. He would mess up the fireplace, track in snow, and make boot footprints in the living room and get us what we wished for from Santa. And of course, there was a lot of family around where the love of another kind abounds (some you wanted and others you cringed from as a kid). But now I look back with so much fondness and how that magic, my father, and the holidays created something of bond for me in so many ways that I treasure today. So, I made this purchase because this reminds me of that fireplace scene, my father, and so many other scenes. We shouldn’t disregard myths or magic as having no power or as having no good in the heavenly realm. CS Lewis wrote the Chronicles of Narnia which is a wonderfully magical, mythical realm that also changed lives. I just hope the kids today don’t miss out on these simple wonders.