A Christmas Eve Wish…
It’s finally here — Christmas Eve and I’m all a twitter with excitement. I love Christmas, it’s my favorite holiday. I also love the artwork of Mary Englebreit, it makes me think of loving people, small towns, knowing all your neighbors, watching out for those around you, and just being the way life should be — or the way we wish it was only with all the conveniences of now. Anyway, we now have this flag at the end of our driveway. We took down the other flag we had to put this one up. I’ve been looking for this particular flag for a couple of years and had just about given up. But, I found it in our local Home Depot when I decided to take another look in case there was something more to my liking than the usual snowmen, poinsettias, and pine trees decorated in the wild. I just spent about thirty minutes trying to find a website that sold this flag so I could point to it but could not find one — Amazon didn’t even have it (which explains why I looked for it for so long).
I love this visual because I believe. Yes, there is a Santa. If you doubt it, you should read (or reread) Francis Pharcellus Church’s answer to Virginia O’Hanlon’s letter to the editor of the New York Sun. Virginia’s question was:
DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
Church’s complete answer may be found here at the Newseum site. But the part that has always stayed with me and brings tears to my eyes whenever I read it is this paragraph:
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
I love Christmas not for the gifts, I don’t even care if I get any. I love it because it seems that, barring a few incidents (think Walmart stampede), Christmas is a time when people on the whole forget to be afraid of one another. People smile at you and nod a greeting when you walk on the sidewalk. The clerks in stores seems to actually recognize that there is a customer before them and make eye-contact and wish you a happy holiday. Everyone seems just a bit friendlier and kinder and more concerned for their fellow human than during the rest of the year. If only we could keep the good spirits of Christmas all year long this world would, in my opinion, be a lot better off.
So, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas or whatever flavor of this holiday season that you celebrate be it Hanaukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, or some variation I’m not aware of. All of these holidays have the common believe that people should be kind to each other, families should gather to celebrate and give thanks for their blessings. So, blessing and best wishes for all.
And because I so enjoy tracking Santa’s progress during the evening on Christmas Eve, I thought that those of you with children (or who are young at heart) and who do celebrate Christmas may want to check out NORAD’s Tracks Santa 2008. (Remember to turn on scripts if you have them turned off). Enjoy your evening — I plan watch A Muppet Christmas Carol and other Christmas movies and spot check Santa’s progress.
Merry Christmas to All and to All a good night.