When I was six years old, I saw Santa Claus. Not at the mall and not at a JC Penny photo session, but in my house. It was Christmas Eve. It was late at night and it was dark. I crept out of my bed and into the living room. The Christmas tree was brightly lit and Santa was bending over putting packages beneath it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He looked up at me briefly, nodded and then turned his attention back to the large bag he was carrying.
The next morning, I could barely contain my excitement. I remember telling my parents that Santa had come to visit the night before. “Sure, sure, of course he did!” they exclaimed. It was, after all, Christmas. “Yes, and I saw him! He was here! Right here under the tree.” My parents looked dubiously at each other, smiled and shrugged their shoulders. I could see that they didn’t believe my story but certainly wanted to play along. Yet, I wanted them to be as excited as I was. I wanted them to feel what I was feeling.
You see, even to this day, I can vividly remember seeing Santa Claus that Christmas Eve. And, it wasn’t my dad in a Santa suit. It was a dream, I suppose, or a vision of Santa. A very real Santa with a real beard, wire-rimmed glasses and eyes that twinkled behind them. A real Santa with rosy red cheeks and black shiny boots still dripping wet from the snow that had fallen the day before.
I have been told that I have a very vivid imagination. At times, an over-active imagination. That I think too much and that my dreams are just plain crazy. So, that certainly may have been the case with my imaginative Santa sighting. Ebenezer Scrooge would have said that he was most likely “an undigested bit of beef” that evening and I certainly cannot dispute that.
However, the memory I have of seeing Santa is one that I have never forgotten. It was incredibly magical and will be etched in my mind forever. And that one memory, that one dream, keeps me believing in things when our weary world says there is no magic left in it.
There is a line from one of my favorite movies, Secondhand Lions, where Robert Duvall gives a speech to a young boy. He says, “ Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most: that people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love, true love, never dies. You remember that. No matter if they’re true or not, a man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in.”
I have watched that movie on countless occasions and that speech touches my heart every single time. Because some things are worth believing in whether they are true or not. Believing in love and the spirit of Christmas. Believing that there is still integrity in the world. Believing that people are inherently good. Believing that there is a God who loves us. These are the beliefs that keep me going. These are things worth believing in. And, yes, I believe that the spirit of Santa Claus, of keeping Christmas alive in your heart, is something worth believing in too.
