Magic
in Giggles on December 21, 2019
I was having breakfast with a friend of mine last week, and the conversation turned to the impending holiday quickly approaching.
Christmas.
“Are you ready?” She asked, giving me a sly wink, under a carefully disguised eye roll.
“Ready? For what? Christmas? Girl, please. I was ready for Christmas in June…but am I finished shopping, wrapping, planning, cooking…and all that jazz..no. Not even close.”
“Wow. I gotta say, I’m slightly disappointed with that statement.”
“Why?” I asked her.
She paused for a moment, looked at me, and said, “Well, there’s just an awful lot of magic at your house. I just figured you, of all people, would be finished.”
Magic.
I had never thought of my house being filled with magic. But, now, having had a few days to sit, think, and reflect on her observation, she’s not wrong. My house is filled with magic. And it has been for a long, long time. I’d say there’s been magic in my house since Jeff and I got married, but if I’m honest, it goes back further than that.
My mother will tell you that I was a bright child; full of stories and an over-active imagination. To this day, that much has not changed. I was an only child for the first eight years of my life. I created many of my playmates. I was the princess locked in castles, who patiently awaited her Prince Charming. I talked to woodland animals. My tea party guests talked back to me.
Magic was all around me.
Santa Claus was real, and visited each and every year, no matter whose house I was staying in.
The Tooth Fairy made her rounds, too.
The Easter Bunny hopped his way to my grandparents’ house every single year after church.
Magic.
I grew up and moved out and on my own. I made amazingly poor decisions, yet the hope and magic of my childhood still surrounded me. The glow of a promise of something happier and better than my current situation helped me get past a bad day, and on to the next.
So, yes. My house today, IS filled with magic. There is magic in the cookies that get baked. Magic in the meals that get cooked (some eaten—some not). Magic in the over-the-top Christmas decorations. There is magic in the memories of my children knowing that Mom is a Level Nine blackbelt ninja in fighting monsters that hide in closets and under beds. I stand at the ready.
Magic.
Christmas is four days away. The most magical day of the year. It’s more than a fat man in a red suit, bringing gifts, more than a turkey on the table, more than family gathered together…
The magic of Christmas is the Baby who taught us to believe in the first place.