I remember one Christmas’s Eve when I was about five years old, we went to my Aunt’s house. My family visited for a while. When the festivities were over, we were riding home on the expressway to our house. My parents told my brother and I that when we got home we needed to get straight to bed because Santa wouldn’t bring us any presents if we were still awake when he came.
As we were driving along, my mom, who loved to mess with my mind, pointed up into the sky and asked if we saw something. She implied that she saw Santa in his sleigh. She told my dad that he better hurry so that we could get to bed soon.
The weird part is that I remember seeing something in the sky that night. I didn’t see Santa and his sleigh. I really wanted to, but I didn’t. I looked up in the sky and I saw something. It looked like an amorphous blob in the dark night sky. It could have been just about anything, but it probably was just a cloud. Yet, I believed that whatever it was that I saw must have been Santa in some form.
I wanted to believe that not because I wanted to see Santa, but because I wanted so much to believe my mom. Over the next several years, I was going to believe so many crazy lies and because I wanted so much to believe my mom.
I’ll never be sure what I saw that night. I don’t think it really matters. All I know is I went to bed that night thinking Santa was coming and I need to fall asleep before he came. Lie or not, I had a night filled with wonder and magic that can only be created when a child is five years old and I am thankful for that.
If I go outside tonight and look up in the sky, who knows what I might see? Merry Christmas.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
