Well a belated Merry Christmas. I have been trying to sit down and right this post for three days, but have been busy. It is the Christmas season so I still feel this post is appropriate and timely.
Do you remember the year your childhood was shattered and someone told you Santa Claus wasn’t real? I was 7 and the kid my parents told me not to play with was the one that broke the bubble on the Santa Claus myth. To this day I still doubt him. This post though is not about Santa Claus in red suits or even St. Nicholas. This is about the real Santa Claus.
Christmas has become an interesting season. Nowadays even people who don’t believe in Jesus celebrate Christmas. People get caught up in the excitement of shopping, hosting parties, going out, seeing friends and family, decorating, and everything else that makes this season stressful. It amazes me to hear people talk about how they celebrate or what they do. I hear so many people brag about what they have done for Christmas such as having their shopping done by October, decorations up before Thanksgiving, shoot I heard one person brag on how they had their decorations and Christmas put up by three that afternoon. Seriously, ???? To me Christmas celebration is a season, not half a day. We spend so much time on preparing for the materialism of Christmas we forget about how Christmas came about, however, this post is not about “the reason for the season”.
This is about Santa Claus or what Santa Claus represents. Since Christmas is about Joy, what then is Santa Claus? Does Santa Claus represent the spirit of giving? To many, that seems to be the answer, yet it is not the complete answer. Just like Christmas Santa Claus is not one day. To find Santa you have to look beyond Christmas.
Our society is consumed not just by materialism, but a lack of honest joy. We do not know the why of what we do, yet we pursue tirelessly some quest to measure ourselves against what others have and what others have achieved. There is always a cost to something. And you hear people say exactly what I just said over and over. No matter how many times we criticize ourselves we fall into the same trap. It seems we cannot stop our obsession with the perception of how we compare. And for this reason we rarely see Santa Claus, yet Santa Claus is real.
Santa Claus is real and is real every day of the year. Santa Claus does represent the spirit of giving, but not the pretty wrapped presents we see under a tree or the TV shows or advertisements or department stores.
You see Santa when you see a person’s eyes filled with unadulterated joy; the complete awe of receiving a gift from someone that was given from the heart. A gift truly from the heart, it can be a material gift, a gift of time, a gift of help, or it may take other forms, but it is a gift that is truly unexpected and was given completely unselfishly. Unfortunately these gifts seem to be few and far between nowadays. They exist though, so then does Santa Claus. Just like a child who has not had the Santa Claus bubble popped and they have that wide eyed wonder when they go from store to store, event to event, and see all the excitement of the season and their days are filled with the innocent joy of childhood you see Santa Claus in their eyes, you can also see that in people throughout the year when they are caught totally off guard by someone who has done something for them for the sheer sake of giving them what they needed without any strings attached etc. Again this is rare nowadays, but when you run across these moments cherish them.
So stop what you are doing, put down the to do list, and think to yourself when was the last time you saw Santa Claus. And if you cannot remember it is time you went out to find him again. And if you put your mind to it, it will not be that hard to find him. Santa Claus is always there each and every day of the year. It is up to you to keep your eyes open. I hope you find him and when you do, please never lose him again. Just like Christmas, Santa Claus is joy. The complete joy of giving or receiving something entirely based on love.
I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas. I hope you have a happy and prosperous new year. And by the way the Charlie Brown Christmas special is still the best Christmas show ever produced. Think about it, will you?
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