Santa Claude is Coming to Town

I woke up at 2:30am this morning. Not because I’m stressed. It’s because I’m excited. I’ve got big kid on Christmas morning energy. That feeling when you have a pretty good idea of what will be under the Christmas tree based on requests, but won’t know until you gather together and unwrap the gifts. Anticipation fulfilled by magic.

Then I learned Santa was my parents. The gifts kept showing up but the magic was gone. My hard earned knowledge about how Christmas worked and how to get on the nice list melted away. I still woke up early, but not quite as early. Comprehensibility made things less meaningful, somehow.

There’s a gap between finding out and becoming. A season where the magic is just gone and nothing replaces it.

Then I had kids. I stay up late assembling bikes. I eat the cookies and drink the milk. I’ve embodied the spirit I’d stopped believing in. The magic gets made by those who show up.