Indulge Me
I spent a good part of today removing all the Christmas decorations from my house, inside and out. This is always a little bit of an odd time for me, as it signals--at least in my mind--the real end of the holiday season.
But this year was a little stranger than any other. For me, the end of the holiday season this year is the end of a very special chapter in my life.
You see, I have two daughters, age 8 and 3. 3 is kind of the age when the child stops being a baby; you know, you can get away with thinking of and, to an extent, treating the 3 year old as a baby. Not so much with a 4 year old. And the eldest is a really bright girl, very artistic, and with a natural tendency towards trusting. But even this year we started getting the questions: "How does Santa fit all the toys on his sleigh?" "How does he get all the houses done in one hour?" You know, all the preliminary questions that will lead her to the conclusion that Santa is not real. And it's not that I want to encourage a delusion her whole life; every kid grows up and realizes that Santa is not a real person, and that those letters never actually make it to the North Pole, and that nobody is watching to see if she's been naughty or nice.
It's just that when Santa is a real thing, Christmas is magical! The sheer wonder of the whole event in her eyes and the excitement of wondering what Santa's bringing just light up our whole household for about five weeks. After this, Christmas is about rituals and what mom and dad and grandma are getting her--it's all very mercenary until the rituals start to take hold of a special place in her heart. I am reluctant to part with that magic, but I fear that I must do so this year.
I know, I know: now she can get beyond "Christmas" and really take ahold of the true meaning of the birth of Christ, the real magic that is His sacrifice of becoming human so that we may all share in eternal life. But that's not the same thing at all, speaking as a daddy. For me, understanding the real magic took about 35 years and took all the wonder of watching my children--I don't want her to go through an extended period of time where Christmas is not such a unique day.
At the very least, I got a great gift out of this Holiday. We bought, for better or worse, and without any prompting from the girls, a trampoline. Which, of course, means a long Christmas Eve night for daddy putting the whole thing together. I'd done about 2-1/2 hours of prep work early in the week, but Christmas Eve was still going to be a long night. And, what a night!! Those of you out there who aren't parents can't quite appreciate the odd mingling of frustration and joy that accompanies activities such as building dollhouses and train sets . . .and trampolines. But this Christmas Eve was special. It was a nearly full moon, and just a light layer of clouds, so midnight was as bright as early dawn, and plenty light enough to work without lights. Somehow, the temperature on this late December night managed to hold in the upper 40s with no wind, so I only rarely needed to put on my gloves as I was working, and the neighborhood, which is densely populated with dogs, was oddly quiet. In other words, it was a nearly perfect night to be putting together a massive project like a trampoline, and I could do nothing the whole night but contemplate how blessed I was to be working under these conditions all for the meager payoff of a child's smile.
So, considering all the extra meanings in this year's Christmas, I had a perfectly joyful time working in the yard until 5 am on Christmas morning.
So, like I said, taking down the Christmas lights today was a pretty bittersweet experience.
So why do I write about this tonight and take up all your valuable reading time? I don't know. It was on my mind. But also, I guess, as a word of warning to all you dads (and moms, too, though I think the whole dad/daughter thing is a whole different world) out there: don't take it for granted, not a moment of it. | |
