Do You Believe in Magic?

"Yes I believe in Santa Claus, like I believe in love. I believe in Santa Claus, and everything he does." -From a song in The Year Without A Santa Claus

The magic is back in Christmas and it's all my daughter's doing. Jesus brings the salvation. Santa brings the gifts. But the Peanut brings the magic.

I went through that period that starts in late high school/early college and lasts apparently until you have children. The period where Christmas loses a little bit of its mojo, becoming more of a formality and an obligation. The shopping and the cooking and the visiting and not much more.

Then you have a child, and without warning, Christmas is back! You wipe the dust off of Christmas morning and it regains its shine and its luster. And it's all because of my daughter.

I couldn't sleep. I was actually waking up almost every hour, like I would when I was a child, in giddy anticipation of the morning to come. The only difference was that I wasn't checking out the jackpot from the top of the stairs every time I had stirred from my long winter's nap. I was even tempted to wake up my daughter one of those times. A time I thought was relatively reasonable for us to wake up. It was a little after 5 AM.

Then the moment came. And Peanut did not disappoint. The smile that transformed her face from sleepiness to satisfaction, from cobwebs to clarification, from haziness to happiness, was, as I had put it, "worth the price of admission."

Then the opening of the gifts began. She sat in the ladybug tent that Santa had brought her and painstakingly opened, admired, and enjoyed every present. Every last piece of wrapping paper had to be removed before she could respond or react. Every box then had to be opened. Every toy had to be played with. Every book had to be read.
Everything came with a smile and a warming of the heart.

Then, came her Christmas present to us. As my wife and I sat there on the couch, relaxing and sipping coffee while we admired the joy we had helped bring to our daughter, Peanut sat in her ladybug. Her gifts from Santa and from us surrounded her, and she said it. Said the only thing parents really want for Christmas, want to hear on Christmas (in some form or another).

"I just love all of my presents," she quipped and smiled, without prompting from either of us, as she merrily frolicked from toy to toy.

And that, my friends, is why I believe in Santa Claus. He brought me the best Christmas present a dad could ask for. His toys helped put the magic back in Christmas.