Rio is playing in the kitchen with a slightly older friend. Suddenly he says, “You know Santa Claus isn’t real.”
I wince, and try to hide my alarm. I’m not ready for this. I’m afraid she’ll get hurt. That bubble of innocence, that fierce belief in all things magic, that protects her from the world, right? Something must. She’s so small.
“I know that,” Rio snaps back, pure sass. Seconds pass and then she says, “Wait. Then who drops off the presents?”
“Santa Claus is really your mom. She leaves the presents.”
“No she doesn’t.”
“Yes, she does. Look at the handwriting. You’ll see it’s exactly the same.”
Rio thinks about this. She’s a little worried, but clearly committed to Santa Claus. They go several rounds of simple, “No!” “Yes!”
Finally, Rio puts her hands on her hips and draws herself up to her full, skinny height. She comes about to this boy’s chin. “I am sorry,” she says imperiously, “but my mother does not do that.”
Oh, Rio. I love you. And I have a secret to tell you, that you are hopefully old enough to understand by the time you read these words: I’m really not Santa Claus. Yes, it’s true, when you make your Christmas list, I read it before we put it in the mail. I drive to the store and buy things for you. I wrap them up and put Santa’s name on them and stick them under the tree. But that doesn’t make me Santa Claus.
In my Witchcraft tradition we do a thing called Aspecting, where we invite a Mysterious One into our body for a time. A glamor comes over us. We can act and speak as that being, but we’re still ourselves, still awake within, still ultimately in charge. Maybe I Aspect Santa Claus.
All I know is that Santa Claus buys crazy shit for you that I would never buy. He rides all over the world finding you the perfect gifts, and wraps them up in bows and shiny paper and stuff that is *so* not my style. Santa shoves about a pound of chocolate into your stocking every year? Would I do that? Right.
Maybe my hands carry out his work, but I am not that guy. Santa Claus is as real to me as he is to you. There’s no other explanation for the things that show up under our holiday tree.
Related posts:
