When I was four years old, on the first day of kindergarten, my teacher said, “Now let’s get one thing straight.  There is no such thing as Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny.”  I remember it like it was yesterday.  All the kids around me started crying and I never did.  But a piece of me died that day.  I suppose it was the magic of my childhood.  It was the first Christmas I can remember and I wanted so desperately to believe but after that I never could.  It remains one of the few things I wish I could go back and change.  My parents tried so hard but I just knew.  Now that I have a little girl I want so much for her to have that joy and wonder as long as she possibly can.  We got to see Santa today.  He listened to her and does not wear his gloves so that he can actually touch his tiny petitioners.  He is the first person I brought her to see when she was just two months old.  And she has seen him every year since.  This is the first year she may remember Christmas.  I pray it is filled with all the wonder and magic of reindeer hooves on the roof after our Christmas Eve service, half eaten cookies, and presents left under the tree.  As she grows older, I pray she knows and practices the spirit of selfless giving and unconditional love toward others.  American novelist Chuck Palahniuk posited this:

“What is the real purpose behind the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus?  They seem like greater steps toward faith and imagination, each with a payoff.  Like cognitive training exercises.”

 Of course the secular is rooted in the sacred, as there was a St. Nicholas.  And so the spirit of Santa is real and rooted in the hearts of all who love him — and in all who believe.  I choose to believe.