Do You Believe?

My mom, and maybe one or both of my brothers may dispute this, but I don't ever remember really believing in Santa Claus. 
Oh maybe when I was real little, but I just don't remember. 
What I do remember is one Christmas when my brother, Jim, only 2 years older than me, said something at Christmas Dinner to my grandpa that he had "seen" Santa.  I caught them both smiling and half winking at each other and I thought... they are not fooling me.  He's just not real.  I can assure you I was less than 7 when this happened because I remember the kitchen we were in and we moved from there when I was 7.  I also remember in that same "7 years or younger" apartment that I had the task of picking out the cookie/cookies to leave for Santa one year.  My mom showed me where the box of cookies was and I remember digging through them all (yes, probably with grubby little unwashed hands) and finding the perfect one.  My mom made cut out cookies and a few of the them were big gingerbread type.  Probably 6" long or more.  I picked out the absolute best.  I knew how much brown was on the back, what the icing on the front looked like... everything.  It was perfection for Santa!  It was also back in the cookie box the next time I looked after Christmas. I had put Santa to the test and he failed  -  busted!

What I really remember is that I don't ever think I bought the story that reindeer could fly.  Pah-leese!!  Now the Tooth Fairy was different.  After all in Sunday School we learned that there were (and I'm sure still are) angels with wings that could fly and ascend from heaven with all sorts of magical powers.  The Tooth Fairy was more believable since she fit that pattern better than some guy with flying hooved animals and a sleigh who could get all over the world to every boy and girls house in one night.  Really?  While the Tooth Fairy may have had to get to a lot of houses in a given night, she sure didn't have to do all of them.  And besides, if she had to, she could.  She had angel powers.  The Easter Bunny fell into the Santa category.  Just a bit unbelievable if you ask me.  Why was a bunny passing out something that came from a chicken's fanny?  Shouldn't we have had an Easter Chicken?  I might have bought that story a bit longer.

As for Santa, I also remember being in 3rd grade - so about age 8 or 9 and we were all giggling because one of the girls in our class still believed in Santa.  It was quite the scandal for 3rd grade.  I sure didn't tell her and I don't think anyone else did.  We just all got a chuckle out of it.

So what I have found amusing over the last 20-30 years is that kids way older than 8 or 9 still tend to believe.  I'm sure AJ believed beyond 4th grade.  But, maybe like a lot of kids he knew better and just didn't want to say anything.  You know... if you stop believing you get underwear for Christmas. 

I currently know 2 little 10 year olds that we are sure still believe (unless we don't realize they've figured out the underwear theory).  And one soon to be 12 year old, who we are sure realizes what's going on, but is keeping the secret from his brother and cousin.  That in itself is sort of a rite of passage.  Being in on the secret with the grown ups practically makes you one of them.  In some homes, you might graduate from the kid table to the big table. 

I just wonder how in the past 55+ years since I was in 3rd grade, (stop laughing at that math) the age of children still believing has gone up.  Do we just perpetuate it more?  Is there so much scary in this world that we do all we can to keep magic and wonder alive for them as long as we can?  I personally think that's the answer.  If we can keep it alive for them, then a bit of fun, whimsy and magic stay alive for all of us, too.  But, then, it could just be the underwear theory.

What I do believe, is that our Savior was born (approximately) on this day.  And just the way the Gospels tell us. Thank you, God for the first and best Christmas present ever.  I love this time of year, but I love the story of Easter even more.  Until then.... 

Merry Christmas, Everyone.  Angels are still everywhere.  Keep your eyes out for them.  This year, many of them wore doctor and nurse's scrubs, drove trucks and tractors/combines, wore police or fire hats and Walmart smocks.  Thousands more were incognito.

Elizabeth

I've been working on Christmas cards and Christmas letters.  Due to not seeing a lot of family and friends this year, I decided to send a few more cards out.
The Christmas letters I usually send by e-mail.  Yes, those boring family brag letters that people send out during the holidays.  Sometimes I don't e-mail the letter.  For a few people, I put them inside a Christmas card and send it through the real mail.  I figure if they don't want to read them, they can throw them away.  As for the ones I do by e-mail, if people don't want to read them... delete.  I enjoy sending them and I enjoy getting them..  Several years ago I began putting the ones I wrote each year in a binder.  What a great scrapbook for life that has become.  I can go back year by year to remember visitors, trips and family events.  Included are pictures that we took with those visitors, on trips or at family events.  
There is one person in particular that not only gets that long generic letter, but I write another private note to her on the side.  Jack's cousin Phyllis. And by note, I mean about another 2 page letter.  Phyllis lived about an hour and a half from us in Georgia.  She's still there.  Her sweet Dave passed a few years ago.  He was one of the kindest, gentlest men I ever knew.  Loved just tossing the baseball with a young AJ whenever we were together.  But, back to Phyllis.  Phyllis has scrapbooks, upon scrapbooks for every year.  Phyllis is in her late 70's so you can imagine how many she has.  I remember her telling me in the early days of e-mail how she wasn't fond of this new way to communicate, as she loved and missed the fine old fashioned art of letter writing.  Her Christmas letter is now computer generated, but always mailed in the mail.  Her letters are always full of detail on almost every event she's done over the past year.  Some with her comical commentary and occasionally the most obscure facts or details.  I enjoy reading every word - sometimes twice!  But, as I said, she loved the old fashioned letter writing and several years ago, she told me that sometimes when she'd get an e-mail, she wouldn't read it right away.  She'd print it out, put it in an envelope and go put it in her mailbox.  Then later in the afternoon when she was ready for her afternoon tea, or cup of coffee, she'd go to the mailbox, get the letter, open it and read it over her relaxing afternoon break. Just as if the postman himself had delivered it.  She is a hoot.  And we always get an additional letter from Phyllis that's just for us, too.  Usually 2 pages or more, also. 

Every year at Christmas one of my first traditions is to dig out last years cards and letters, which I make easily accessible, and with my own cup of tea or cocoa, I sit and read through them all again.  I especially enjoy re-reading her letters. 

I wrote her the additional 2020 - two page letter the other night.  And I mentioned something that Jack and I have thought of over the past several months, that only he and I and Phyllis would understand. The flu pandemic of 1918. Jack and I have mentioned it in the last 10 months in a few conversations.  I asked her if she had thought about Elizabeth, like we had.  
You see, Phyllis' dad and Jack's mom were brother and sister.  But, there was another sister, Elizabeth.  Elizabeth died in the pandemic of 1918.  She died in October 1918 which by historical accounts, the fall of 1918 was especially the worst.  She was just 7 years old when she died. Jack's mom, Lydia was barely 6 and Phyllis' dad, Walter was 13.  

For as long as I knew Jack's mom, you could always tell that this major event in her young life was a hole that she carried in her heart forever.  Imagine... 1918.  They lived on a farm a few miles outside of town. You didn't have mom or dad drive you to town to play with other friends, you didn't go to the movies every week, you didn't call and talk to your friends on a phone.  You were home and your whole world was in those few acres around the farm house and your only playmates were your siblings.  Can you imagine being 6 with a sister just a bit older than you who was your whole world - and then, suddenly she was gone? You also have to remember that the grown ups would never had pulled a little one aside to explain anything about why her sister was gone.  No attention paid to the devastation and heart ache she must have felt.  It wasn't their fault.  It's just the way it was back then.  Children were not recognized as full living human beings with emotions and feelings.  And on top of that, I'm sure she could hear the gut wrenching sounds of her own mother's sobs as she had to accept that God had taken her sweet little girl away from her.  How frightening it must have been to hear her mother's heart breaking out loud.  Lydia wore those wounds her whole life.  Add to that, as I understand, her mother was never really the same.  She became cold and distant.  Withdrawn.  Going through the motions of life with little feelings.  Today we'd call that depression.  So sad.  And the fallout showed in Lydia's demeanor and personality quite often..

As I understand it, that pandemic lasted about 2 years. So if by next Spring we have an available vaccine and most of this is put behind us in less than 2 years, we should thank God for the times we live in.   Maybe we are all tired of hearing this on the news, but at least we can get some information.  In 1918, there was not an easy way to warn people.  Only newspapers.  Or that old fashioned way of communicating through the postal mail.  Snail mail.  News information was not instant.  As annoying as our social media can be with the misinformation and political nonsense, it can also be used as a source for good information.  You just have to be aware of the source.
For our children, this has been scary, I'm sure.  But thankfully we now live in a time when we realize that they are human beings with real feelings, emotions and fears.  And it is always the responsibility of the big people in a family to look after the little people.  Maybe they won't understand your words exactly, but they will remember your demeanor.  So explain what you can to the little ones. Explain it all calmly and without panic.   I pray that you don't have to explain why a loved one has passed.  But if you lose a loved one - now or anytime, please take time with the little ones to help them understand. Explain it in the simplest terms that they can understand.  So they won't have to bare the weight of their devastation, heart ache and confusion for 80 years.

Over 50 million people died in the pandemic of 1918-1919.  195,000 died in October 1918.  One of them was Aunt Elizabeth.  And sadly she took a piece of her little sisters innocence and so much of her mother's heart that there was little left to nurture her remaining family.  It wasn't her fault.  It was 1918. There were no psychologists or therapists to talk to the big people either.