Believing in Santa

Santa and Peggy, a few years ago

Patsy Kelley is a Facebook friend, despite the fact that she is the one who, when we were eight years old, announced to me with great authority that Santa Claus did not exist. I was furious with her for confirming what I already knew but had refused to admit, even in the secret places in my heart. Of course there was no Santa.

B ut I wanted so much to keep believing.

I still do.

That’s why, of course, I tear up at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol (the George C. Scott version is my favorite) and Miracle on 34th Street. I’m even a sucker for scenes like the one from a movie I’ve never seen, Elf, when a lone young woman inspires a crowd of strangers in New York City to begin singing together. As people join in, one by one, to sing “He’s making a list and checking it twice…” during the YouTube clip, I want to be with them, bundled against the cold, warming up to the idea that, yes, there is magic in this season, if we could just raise our voices together and sing into our presence something greater than ourselves — something with more power, more love, more goodness, more hope.

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