The Magic Of Christmas

At Christmas time, in my family, Santa brought two gifts for each of us - our main gift and then coloring book and crayons or a jigsaw puzzle.

With there being so many of us, eleven in all, this looked like a lot once you put it around the tree. It would take up half the living room.

I always liked watching everyone open their gifts, so I would leave mine unopened until everyone else was done opening theirs. Come to think of it, I have lived my life that way. I have watched everyone else open their spiritual gifts, leaving mine sit there unopened. Now I'm beginning to get excited about what mine might be.

There wasn't enough money to fill stockings; but I have always remembered the year my father's sister knitted a pair of mittens for each of us; and then she filled them with candy and nuts. Mom hung these mittens like you would stockings - it was so exciting.

And one year, when I was about eleven, I remember being very excited because we had popcorn and Coca-cola in the house. It felt like we were one of those families I saw on television.

We always had a big turkey for Christmas Dinner and pies made with Mom's homemade mincemeat. She would spend Christmas Eve day baking other treats that she only made at Christmas - Mocha Cakes(pieces of white cake rolled in ground peanuts or walnuts) and War Cakes (eggless fruit cakes).

Christmas is all so magical when you are a child. Some people only know how to recapture that Christmas magic if they are making Christmas for a child; but that child still lives in all of us - just waiting to be reawakened by the magic that is so much a part of Christmas.

It doesn't require an open pocketbook so much as an open heart. It took me a lot of years to learn this. I wasted a lot of Christmases worrying about what I didn't have to give; now I keep my focus on what I DO have to give - and sometimes it is truly amazing where little opportunities to give present themselves - keeping the spirit of Santa alive even in the world of grownups.