Creating the Magic of Christmas Morning is Always Worth the Effort

It was always more fun when the kids didn't have a specific Christmas list and could really be surprised. A request for surprises meant Santa didn't disappoint and the children often ended up with truly unexpected gifts under the tree or, in one case, the backyard.

Santa was full of surprises and often brought gifts my husband and I never would have "approved."  For example, one year Mr. Claus brought our children, who were desperate for a pet, two hamsters who became known as Herbie and Furby. The hamsters came home from Seabreeze Pet Store on Christmas Eve and quietly hid in the basement until the next morning.  When the kids discovered the hamsters and their accessories under the tree not only was it proof Santa existed, it was a clear statement that he knew what was best for them.  Santa was smarter and nicer than their Mom and Dad, who had said hamsters were too much like mice — a creature we were trying to eliminate from our house.

Another year, Santa dropped a trampoline in our backyard as he and his reindeers passed overhead. The trampoline, acquired at Sam's Club, came in two boxes.  My husband and I assembled it and arranged for our neighbor to store it out of sight in her yard. The plan was for my brother to help us move it from the neighbor's yard to ours on Christmas Eve and then attach the safety netting. That night the kids' excitement was off the charts and they had trouble falling asleep. To kill time, our "helper" and my husband helped themselves to a few more glasses of wine. Needless-to-say, the carefully orchestrated plan to move the trampoline across the street and attach the safety netting was modified. At least the elves got it in our yard, much to the delight of the kids on Christmas morning.

But, it wasn't just the gifts Santa delivered that kept the magic alive. One year, Julia, on the cusp of not believing wrote Santa a letter and drew him an intricate picture of his sleigh and reindeer. What do you do with such a treasure? We couldn’t toss it away.

She could not have been more surprised when he responded with his own note about the drawing. He told her that he wanted her to keep the picture, but he like it so much he took pictures of it to show Mrs. Claus. Julia was thrilled with this new evidence of Santa.

The following year the inevitable happened. She stopped believing. Unbeknownst to everyone in the family, she still had Santa's letter and decided to conduct a handwriting analysis to see whose writing matched the note.  The jip was up.

I recently came across some of Julia's letters to Santa. Her desire to believe was so genuinely earnest and a good reminder that it was worth all the effort it took to keep the magic alive.