What happened to the Magic?

So we've just come off one of the biggest holidays of the year.  People are in debt from buying toys and goodies that were laced around the tree.  Kids are playing and using games,toys and new technology and parents are trying to figure out how to pay it all off. And I'm thinking about all the holiday movies that trumpet magic and "believing" and being a scrooge or solemn messages that guilt you into celebrating the true meaning of Christmas.

When I was a little girl I whole hardheartedly believed that Santa Claus brought me every gift I got on Christmas morning, most of them extravagant and unneeded but pure happiness for me because I was the one receiving the gifts. I looked at Christmas with whimsy and excitement and selfishness because while we were supposed to be celebrating baby Jesus birth, I was going to get a lot of gifts because of him.  I remember when I started finding out that Santa might not be real.  I was afraid that I would no longer get any presents and so I pretended to believe several years after I heard my Dad walking around in the living room shaking jingle bells and then coming to our bedroom door and telling us "Santa" had just come.  It never occurred to me until later that some people have a lot of difficulty with telling their children they would not be getting anything for Christmas.  And when I got married my husband and I started feeling guilty about telling our kids there was a Santa.  We felt as though we were boldly lying to our children and encouraging them to believe in something that wasn't real.

Oh, I know, some of you will say, "Aw, it doesn't hurt them to tell little lies like that.  Kids need something to believe in and there is nothing wrong with make believe."  But it didn't stop us from feeling guilty every time we told them to behave because Santa was coming.  Some where along the way we decided to let our kids know that there really wasn't a Santa Claus and that if you got something for Christmas it was either because someone else gave it to you or your parents went out and bought it...and if they didn't have much money you probably weren't going to get the things you had dreamed of.
I have always loved my imagination and I could create the best of a fantasy in my mind, but I could not come up with a creative way to tell our children that there was no Santa the year we were in Seminary.  We barely had enough money to get back and forth to work.  We had people from our church sending us donations of food and money on a monthly basis but we never really knew what we were going to have.  There was nothing extra and we certainly had to be careful when it came to holidays.
I remember with great sadness sitting our three children down ranging in age from 6, 9 and 10.  There were a few gifts under a scrawny tree in paper bags with stocking drawn on them.  I did not see anyway they would get anything else for Christmas so through my tears I painfully told them that Santa would not be coming that year.  That we were Santa and we did not have any money to buy gifts that year.
Our two daughters seemed to accept it pretty well, but poor little Benjamin was devastated.  I could see the fire of defiance and denial in his eyes as tears rolled down them.  I could feel the daggers of hatred for the place we were in and the reality of having to do without.  I sensed his resentment towards us and the place we had found ourselves in.

So, many years have passed and my children have grown up and they have children of their own.  Some are telling their kids there is a Santa and some are adamantly opposed to it.
I was relating a story to someone this year about my childhood and some of my memories about how I looked forward to Christmas.  We were standing my my son and daughter in laws kitchen and Benjamin came passed me as I was relating the story.  He had not heard me explain that it was my experience and said"That isn't how I remember it, at all"  And I still felt the sadness of the day I told them.
Now I don't want to leave you thinking that the story didn't have a happy ending.  Our children ended up getting a very nice Christmas that year and actually got more gifts than we would have ever given them.  Our church had taken on our family as their "mission" that year unbeknown to us, and so all of us got things we really wanted.  The church we were attended in the seminary community knew of our situation too, so that year another church gave us food, clothing and gifts as well.  So there was some magic and whimsy.
But I can't help but wonder how that experience affected my children inside?  I still feel badly about it, I still wish I could take the pain away, I still want to help them work through the issues that all of us have to deal with after we grow up and leave home.
Sometimes I really dislike reality.  I don't like feeling like I'm not going to be taken care of.  I never wanted my children to hurt and experience difficult things.  I wish I could have magically snapped my fingers and made our life easier.  Each one of my children experienced it differently. One said she saw the faithfulness of God in our lives and has been thankful ever since for that experience.
I would have liked to pull my son aside and discussed the comment he made.  I'm sure there will be a time in the future to do that.  I realize I can not ease the pain that my children have experienced but I can validate their feelings and empathize with them.

Some day we will all look back at the things in our lives we didn't understand when we were going through them and understand.  Time and age has a way of doing that for us.  There is still magic and whimsy even though sometimes "we see through a glass darkly" but  it will come to pass that we will see things as they really are.