Believing in Miracles. Believing in Santa.
One of my favorite stories as a child was Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.. My most-loved part was the moment children around the world are asked to clap their hands if they believe in fairies.
Tinkerbell, Peter’s guardian fairy companion is fighting for her life after drinking down the poison mixed into Peters medicine by Captain Hook. If enough children believe in the “unbelievable,” her life will be restored.
‘If you believe,’ he shouted to them, ‘clap your hands; don’t let Tink die.’
Written as a play and performed in 1904, imagine a theater filled with children and their parents, fervently clapping their hands to resuscitate the beautiful winged creature kneeling prostrate on the stage. The stage success led to the publication of the book Peter and Wendy in 1911.
Fairies, dragons, elves, unicorns, are just some of the fantastic beings inhabiting folktales told around the world. In the United States, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter bunny are standard favorites, brought to life in the stories parents tell their young children. Children listen and imagine beings full of love and generosity, bearing a gift just for them. What’s not to like?
Eventually, with age, cynicism creeps in. While children are more likely to be open to all possibilities, adults start erecting walls and setting limits. But for creatives like myself, isn’t it fun to believe? Because what I’ve observed is that if enough people believe in something, they can make a change and hopefully a change in a positive direction. Which gets me to Santa Claus, yes Santa Claus.
The persona of Santa Claus wasn’t heavily promoted, in the house I grew up. Reluctantly my dad, raised an Orthodox Jew, let my mother purchase a Christmas Tree. I’d read the poem “The Night Before Christmas,” and memorized it, but never seriously considered Santa to be real. And then in my first marriage, my in-laws who were devout Catholics, would exchange gifts from “Santa” and when I’d try to thank them they would insist that it was “Santa” I should thank. They were so convincing, I started to want to believe if only for a few moments, that maybe Santa was real. Or maybe Santa wasn’t so much a person or folk hero than an idea, the idea of generosity.
Fast forward to having children of my own and playing the Santa game. Using different wrapping paper for Santa gifts or no paper at all. Hiding said gifts. Then adopting a family tradition of giving gifts to needy families in the County where we live who we were matched with, trying to find the items they’d requested from Santa, and delivering them a few days before Christmas.
My daughter Alex started asking questions about who was the real Santa, and this led to my writing a poem “Who Is Santa?” and imagining it as a book with illustrations. For me Santa Claus is a personification of a generous spirit, something we should all aspire to become. Too many of us see the world only in terms of our own self interests and choose to block out the needs and feelings of others. Maybe if generosity is taught to us as children, we’d have a better chance to become caring adults. My daughter loved the book and I tried to get it published and then in 1996 published it myself on thick paper with spiral binding.
Now I’m a grandmother and I have a cause I’d like to raise money for -research into a rare childhood cancer pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB) and other DICER1- related cancers. The publishing industry has changed, and I’ve issued a new edition available on Amazon. Click here to purchase if you’d like to have or give a copy to someone special in your life.
Thank you for reading and don’t forget you can sign up to follow me for FREE on WordPress, Substack or Medium and visit my website at http://www.Nadjamaril.com to read more of my writing.
Originally published at http://nadjamaril.com on October 7, 2024.
