When you’re young, getting caught up in the spirit of the holiday season is easy: Santa, his reindeer, the possibility of a white Christmas, gifts under the tree and countless other things all combine to make December simply magical.
Speaking of magic, I believed in Santa Claus until I was 12 years old. Yes: 12! I was naive (as a child should be), and wanted to believe in “him” so badly that even when I found a doll under my parents’ bed that later appeared on Christmas morning with a “love Santa” tag, I still refused to believe he wasn’t real. I think it all stemmed from a story my mom had told me when we were very little: one year, she had actually heard jingle bells and the stomp of hooves on the roof early in the morning on Christmas Day. How could I not believe in the face of such overwhelming evidence?
Times have changed now: My 12-year-old stepdaughter hasn’t believed in Santa since she was about four years old. I remember myself, Madison and her mom in the car one day. We were trying to dispel her newfound knowledge that Santa wasn’t real, but she wasn’t having it. It made us sad that she’d stopped believing at such a young age, but I’ve since realized that the spirit of Christmas is to be found in many places.
In this issue, Deborah Rogers put a call out to readers, contributors and the Seaside team to find out what our can’t-miss Christmas traditions are (see the results on pg. 11). It’s these traditions that add to the magic of the season every year for young and old.
This year, things will be different for me. My fiancé and I are taking our daughter to Calgary to spend the holidays with his family, and I think this might be the first Christmas that I haven’t spent at my mom’s house. I’ve lived in other places, but Christmas was sacred and wherever we were, my sister, brother and I would always make it back home to celebrate the season.
But things change, and as we get older our Christmas traditions have to evolve to accommodate partners, children, and extended families … the torch is passed from parents to their children to create new memories and traditions and to ignite a spark of Christmas spirit in our little ones’ eyes. One family’s holiday traditions are combined with another’s to create something quite splendid and just right.
So here’s to tradition, magic and family, and above all: capturing the spirit of the season. Happy Holidays to all our wonderful readers.
