It's True

So. Uhm. Something some of you may not know about me. My parents? Are...the Kringle's. No, I'm serious. They're the Kringles. Every year, they go to the Harvard Coop children's dept. one Saturday in December dressed in their Santa and Mrs. Claus gear and tell stories and listen to wishes and do all the things the Clauses do. But it's more than that. It's really so much more than that. It's the fact that their house around the holidays looks like a literal Christmas town. It's the fact that, when the five of us kids were growing up, they did whatever they could to make Chrismtas as magical as possible, regardless of how the family was doing financially.

The year I was in second grade, my dad was out of work. That was the year that Cabbage Patch Kids were SUPER hot. My parents sat me down and explained that only VERY lucky little girls were getting CPK's that year, because Santa's elves were working their very hardest, but they might not be able to make enough for ALL the little girls who wanted them. I came down the stairs that Christmas morning to my Cabbage Patch Kid, Nellie. And I knew I was the luckiest girl in the whole world. That one event cemented my belief in Santa for years to come.

Even now, watching my parents share their sense of Christmas magic with children they know and children they don't gives me a sense of the magic of the season, and the love and joy that come along with it, if you open yourself up to it. They passed this along to their children, too. We all obsess over shopping for each other, vying to give each other ever more personal and meaningful gifts. It's not about the materialism as much as it is about enjoying the joy on each other's faces when we open a truly well chosen gift.

When E and I got engaged, we pretty much immediately decided on a Christmas-themed wedding. After all, there is no party either of us enjoys more than a Christmas party, so we figured, what could be a better celebration than a giant Christmas party? And our wedding was the most magical, beautiful Christmas party we'd ever been to.

All this is why, even though I'm a 32 year old woman, I still react to Christmas like a little kid. I get hyperactive and distracted now, just like I did all those years ago. I don't want to be at work the week before Christmas; I want to be preparing and just hanging with my family. I still have trouble sleeping on Christmas Eve. And I wouldn't trade that for the world.