Remembering When Santa Couldn't Find Flipper

A Christmas Story About Loss, Hope, and the Magic We Can't Always Make

There's a Calvin and Hobbes strip that perfectly captures the quiet exasperation and reluctant love parents feel when trying to fix their child's world. It's night, and Calvin's parents are out in the woods searching for Hobbes, Calvin’s lost stuffed tiger. Calvin’s dad grumbles about how ridiculous it is to look for a toy in the dark, while his mom, flashlight in hand, calls out “Ho-o-obbes!” into the trees. In the final panel, she sheepishly admits how silly it feels, and Calvin’s dad replies, “I may be crazy, but I’m not as crazy as you.” It's a moment that’s both absurd and touching—two parents doing something ridiculous simply because it matters deeply to their child.

I think about that strip every time I remember the Christmas of the Missing Flipper.

The Crisis

Faith was about five, and we were doing last-minute Christmas shopping at the mall that particular kind of December chaos where holiday music battles crying toddlers and everyone's running on caffeine and determination. Faith had brought Flipper with her, as she always did. He was her constant companion, a small gray dolphin I'd picked up years earlier from the gift shop at the Houston Aquarium during a business trip.

Flipper wasn't much to look at, standard stuffed animal fare, the kind you'd find in any aquarium gift shop. But to Faith, he was everything. He had the perfect amount of squishiness, the right weight in her arms, and that indefinable something that makes one toy irreplaceable while a dozen identical ones gather dust.

Somewhere between the food court and Santa's village, Flipper disappeared.

The realization hit like a physical blow. Faith's face crumpled in that way that makes your heart forget how to beat properly. We retraced our steps, asked mall security, and checked the lost and found. Nothing. Flipper was gone, swallowed up by the holiday crowds and the vast anonymity of shopping mall America.

The Promise

Standing in that mall, watching my daughter's world fall apart over a $12 stuffed dolphin, I did what parents do when backed into an impossible corner: I improvised. I made a promise I wasn't sure I could keep.

"Don't worry, sweetheart. Santa will find Flipper. He has helpers everywhere, and they'll look for him. Santa will bring him back for Christmas."

It was the kind of parental promise that feels necessary in the moment and terrifying immediately after. But Faith's tears stopped, replaced by that beautiful, trusting hope that makes childhood both magical and heartbreaking. She believed Santa could do what we couldn't.

The Search

I was confident this would be easy. I'd bought Flipper at the Houston Aquarium. How hard could it be to call the gift shop and order another one?

Very hard, as it turned out.

Flippers that didn't make the cut

The gift shop no longer carried that particular plush. It had been discontinued. The helpful employee suggested I try their website, other aquarium gift shops, or maybe eBay. What had seemed like a simple phone call became a quest that would span two states and the entire internet.

I visited every toy store in Southern California. I bought dolphins from eBay sellers across the country. I examined plush marine life with the intensity of a marine biologist. Gray dolphins, blue dolphins, small dolphins, large dolphins. I acquired enough stuffed sea creatures to stock my own aquarium gift shop.

But none of them was Flipper. None had quite the right shade of gray, the same fin shape, the perfect degree of huggability that made Flipper irreplaceable. Each purchase was accompanied by a mixture of hope and growing dread as I realized the magnitude of what I'd promised.

The Letter

Christmas Eve arrived, and I still hadn't found him. Faith had asked about Flipper every day, her faith in Santa's abilities unwavering. I was going to have to tell her that even Santa had limits.

So I did what parents do when magic fails: I tried to make meaning from the disappointment.

Santa's letter explained that he and his elves had searched the whole world for Flipper. They'd checked toy stores and aquariums, looked in children's bedrooms and under Christmas trees. But sometimes, Santa wrote, when a special toy gets lost, it finds its way to a child who needs it even more, maybe a little boy or girl who didn't have any toys at all, who needed Flipper's comfort even more than Faith did.

Santa was sure Flipper was in good hands, making another child feel loved and safe. And while he couldn't bring back the original Flipper, he hoped Faith would give this new dolphin a chance to become just as special.

The Reality

Faith accepted the explanation with the grace that children sometimes show when adults are honest with them about hard things. She named the new dolphin Flipper 2 and dutifully carried him around for a while. But it was never the same. You can't manufacture the bond between a child and their chosen comfort object, no matter how much love and Santa magic you pour into the attempt.

Flipper Two was tolerated rather than treasured, a constant reminder of what had been lost rather than what had been found.

The Redemption

Faith & a Flipper, St. Nicholas Day 2006.

For a few years, St. Nick, who is fond of bringing good children stuffed animals on St. Nicholas Day, brought a new dolphin to bring to Faith, mainly to assuage my guilt. Soon enough, she found herself with a bed full of stuffed dolphins. She liked them all, but my (and St. Nicholas') quest continued. Finally, a few years later, browsing yet another toy store during the holidays, I found him. Not Flipper, that ship had sailed, but his nearly identical twin. The same shade of gray, the same proportions, the same soft texture that had made the original so perfect.

This time, I didn't promise Faith that Santa had found the original Flipper. St. Nicholas simply left the new dolphin in her stocking with a small note: "Sometimes miracles take a little longer to arrive."

By then, Faith was older, wiser about the ways of the world and the limitations of holiday magic. But she accepted this dolphin with something approaching the old affection, and he became a gentle presence in her room, not quite Flipper, but close enough to bring comfort without the weight of impossible expectations.

The Lesson

In the Calvin and Hobbes strip, Calvin does eventually find Hobbes, his friend Susie had been taking care of him. But the relief comes only after Calvin has experienced the full weight of loss, the helplessness of searching, and the devastating possibility that his best friend might be gone forever. Sometimes the world does restore what's been taken from our children, but not always, and not on our timeline. The magic we create as parents, the reindeer feed, the special keys, the carefully crafted stories, work beautifully when we're building wonder. But has limits when we're trying to heal genuine loss.

What I learned from the Great Flipper Crisis is that sometimes the most honest magic we can offer our children isn't the promise that everything lost will be found, but the assurance that they're strong enough to survive the losing. That love doesn't end when comfort objects disappear. That new attachments are possible, even if they're different from what came before.

New/Old Flipper

Faith is in college now, and one of the Flippers still sits on her dorm room bed, a quiet testament to the enduring power of comfort, even when it comes in unexpected forms. But I still remember the lesson of that Christmas that parental love is powerful, but not omnipotent. Sometimes the best gift we can give our children isn't the restoration of what was lost, but the modeling of how to keep going when restoration isn't possible.

The magic we make works best when it celebrates what's present, not when it promises to undo what's past. And sometimes, that's enough.

Merry Christmas, and may all your important things stay found, but may you find strength when they don't.

Magic Reindeer Feed: Our Christmas Tradition

"But how will Santa know where we are?" Faith's voice carried that particular mix of worry and wonder that only a child facing their first Christmas crisis can muster. We'd recently moved to Southern California, no snow, no chimney, no clue how Santa was supposed to make it work.

Hanging Santa's Magic Key, Christmas Eve 2004

"And how will he get in without a fireplace?" she added, her brow furrowed with the kind of serious concern that makes you realize your five-year-old has been thinking this through.

At the time, Teddy was still a true believer, full of wonder and ready to defend Santa's honor to anyone who dared question him. Kailey, on the other hand, had already been quietly inducted into the fraternity of elves that knowing, magical role older siblings step into when they learn the truth but choose to protect the magic for the little ones. That Christmas became a turning point. The questions were real, but so was our response.

So, like any good parent backed into a magical corner, I improvised.

The Solution

Kailey, Faith, Madison, and Teddy making
Magic Reindeer Feed, Christmas Eve 2008

2004 marked the beginning of our tradition of Magic Reindeer Feed and Santa's Magic Key. Standing in our California kitchen, we gathered around the counter. The kids stirred the oats and sparkles, the gentle sound of ingredients hitting the mixing bowl creating its own kind of Christmas music. Faith added a healthy scoop of Christmas hope with each stir.

The mixture was festive and fun, but more than that, it was purposeful. I told the kids the reindeer would be able to see it glimmering from the sky, guiding Santa straight to our home. It was a homemade beacon, one part snack, two parts signal, and all heart.

And the key? Oh, the key. Growing up, my mom had her own ways of making Christmas magic work, no matter where we lived or what challenges we faced. She taught me that the best traditions aren't the ones you inherit perfectly, they're the ones you adapt with love. Our first Magic Key was humble and homemade, an old house key we weren't using anymore, decorated with a red yarn lanyard and absolutely smothered in as much glitter as we could glue on. It looked more like a kindergarten art project than a piece of North Pole tech, but it worked.

A few years later, one of Santa's "elves" (with an Amazon account) upgraded us to a more elegant skeleton key, something shiny and antique-looking, worthy of the North Pole. But I still keep that original glittery mess tucked away with our decorations. It was the key that started it all.

Magic Reindeer Feed Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/4 cup red and green sugar sprinkles
• 1/4 cup edible glitter or colored sanding sugar
• A pinch of belief (the secret ingredient)

Instructions: Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl until evenly distributed. The mixture can be stored in an airtight container for up to two weeks before Christmas Eve.

The kids spreading the feed, Christmas Eve 2006

On Christmas Eve, give each child a small handful to scatter on the lawn, porch, or even a balcony. If rain is in the forecast, place small piles under covered areas or on windowsills. Reindeer have excellent eyesight.

Notes: Back then, we used regular craft glitter, thinking more about sparkle than sustainability. But over time, as the kids got older and more aware of the world around them, we made the switch to edible glitter, a small but meaningful change to make sure the reindeer (and the North Pole) stayed microplastic-free. Magic shouldn't come at the planet's expense.

The Ritual

The kids scattered the feed on our lawn with the gravity of an ancient ritual, whispering instructions to Dasher and Dancer and all the rest. Their voices carried across the California evening air, mixing with the sound of distant neighbors and the unfamiliar hum of our new neighborhood. I remember thinking how different this felt from the snowy Christmases of my childhood, yet somehow just right.

The next morning, we'd find the sparkles mostly gone (thanks to birds, wind, and morning dew), evidence enough that the reindeer had found us after all.

The Evolution

Now, years later, the kids are older. The questions have changed. Kailey is getting ready for medical school, Teddy is in college, Faith has taken her place as an elf, and all the kids know the secret. But the magic? It lingers.

However, I've learned something important about traditions: they're not museum pieces to be preserved exactly as created. They're living things that grow and adapt. Some years, we've added different colored sugars depending on what I had on hand. One year, we made extra bags so the kids’ friends could join in “our” ritual. The tradition became less about the exact recipe and more about the moment of connection that Christmas Eve pause, where we acknowledge wonder together.

Every Christmas Eve, I still see that first night through Faith's eyes, the worry, the wonder, and the moment I realized that magic isn't something that happens to you. It's something you create, one handful of sparkly oats at a time.

If Yes, Virginia was about believing in the unseen, this tradition was about doing something to make that belief real. And maybe that's the greatest kind of magic there is, the kind that starts with a parent's quick thinking and becomes a memory none of us will ever forget.

Merry Christmas, and may you always find just enough sparkle in your yard and your heart.

It's a Wonderful Life

Every year, without fail, I tear up at the end of It's a Wonderful Life.

Sometimes it's just a lump in my throat that sends me out of the room for a "drink of water." Other times I just openly cry, no single dignified tear about it. I think the kids have noticed, and they've learned to look away right around the part where Harry Bailey raises his glass, maybe so I won't feel embarrassed. But I never do.

For some reason, this year I am thinking about why this movie, and this scene in particular, gets to me every time. I think I finally understand it. But I'll come back to that.

I am sure that I saw the film for the first time as a kid, on our huge console television set. I don't remember crying then. I just filed it away. But years later, in college and working at Brentano's Books, one of the first things I did with my first paycheck was special order a VHS copy of this movie. Naturally, using my employee discount. Not a textbook. Not a concert ticket. A 1946 film about a man standing on a bridge, ordered on purpose and waited for. I don't think I could have explained why then.

That first VHS was a poorly colorized version of the movie, which was less than ideal, but when the tape eventually faded, I replaced it with a better (B&W) DVD version, and when iTunes started streaming movies, I bought it there too. Some things you just keep.

More Than a Christmas Movie

The easy reading of It's a Wonderful Life is that it's a feel-good holiday picture about family and friends. That's not wrong. It's just thin.

What Capra is actually doing is building a moral argument about what makes a life worth living. George Bailey is not a hero in any conventional sense. He doesn't fight wars, discover cures, or build anything that bears his name. What he does, over and over again, is show up.

He shows up for his brother Harry when Harry falls through the ice as a boy, losing hearing in one ear in the process. He shows up for Mr. Gower the druggist, who accidentally poisons a prescription, saving the man's livelihood and probably his freedom. He shows up for Mary, for his family, for the working people of Bedford Falls who need someone to fight Potter on their behalf, year after year, at the cost of his own dreams.

None of it looks heroic in the moment. It just looks like life.

The film's real genius is what Capra does with the alternate universe. Pottersville isn't just darker and meaner than Bedford Falls. It's a place where no one ever had someone show up for them at the right moment. George's presence was invisible and unheroic. Every small decision to stay, to help, to absorb the cost held the whole community together. Remove him and the web collapses.

Jimmy Stewart and the Weight of 1946

Stewart was never more perfectly cast, and not simply because he was a veteran. He spent nearly two years fighting to get overseas, his superiors reluctant to send a famous actor into danger. He finally got his way and arrived in England in late 1943 as the operations officer, and later the commanding officer, of the 703rd Bomb Squadron, flying B-24 Liberators over Nazi-occupied Europe. At a time when air crews were expected to be killed between eight and twelve missions, Stewart flew twenty. Near-death experiences and the loss of men under his command aged him visibly.

On February 24, 1944, during what airmen called Big Week, Stewart's own squadron was sent to bomb an aircraft plant at Gotha, deep inside Germany. Only one plane of the 703rd made it home that day. Stewart sat through the surviving crew's debriefing, listening to what they had seen. Partway through, he broke down and left the room.

In the final months of the war, he was grounded for what we now call PTSD. He returned home in August 1945, went almost directly into production on the movie, and never spoke publicly about his wartime experiences for the rest of his life.

All of that is on screen, whether Capra planned it or not. Actors and crew on set reportedly realized that in the scenes where George Bailey unravels in front of his family, Stewart wasn't entirely acting. The hollowness behind his eyes in certain moments, the way his voice cracks before it steadies, those aren't performance choices. They're a man carrying something real into a role that needed exactly that weight.

The rough edges in the performance are features of the same thing. The broad early scenes, the outbursts at Mary and the teacher on the phone, reflect what postwar audiences were actually carrying. They hadn't yet arrived at the tidy domesticity of the 1950s. "Leave It to Beaver" was still a decade away. Life in 1946 was messier and rawer, and a perfectly composed hero would have felt false. George's flaws are what make his redemption land. A man who never snapped, never came unraveled, never stood on a bridge and meant it, doesn't need redemption. The arc works only because we've watched someone genuinely come apart.

Barrymore's Potter works precisely because he's a cartoon. The film is a morality play, and morality plays require moral clarity. A more ambiguous Potter, some conflicted figure with understandable grievances, would have complicated George's choices in ways the story can't afford. Every time George refuses what Potter is selling, that refusal needs to read as virtue, not mere stubbornness. The cartoonishness keeps the moral architecture clean. George isn't wrestling with a complicated man. He's choosing, over and over again, not to become one.

Donna Reed's Mary is sometimes called underwritten, and that criticism misreads the role. Mary isn't the dramatic center. She's the fixed point. She's what Pottersville doesn't have. Her constancy isn't a limitation; it's the whole point of the character. She knows what George is worth before he does, and she holds that knowledge steady through everything. It's a supporting role by design, the story belonging to George and, in its way, to Clarence, and Reed plays it with exactly the right quiet precision.

Why I Cry

I don't tear up when George is saved. It almost always happens when Harry stands before George and raises his glass to "the richest man in town."

It gets me because George never knew. He spent his entire life pouring himself out and genuinely believed, standing on that bridge, that none of it had mattered. He'd measured himself against the life he'd given up and decided the ledger came up short. And he was so wrong that it's almost unbearable.

There is a particular kind of work in life that doesn't announce itself. It shows up without being asked. It keeps its word because keeping your word matters. It stays in the room when leaving would be easier. It doesn't generate recognition. It just quietly makes the town worth living in.

I've said before that this film inspires me to be more and do better. Most people describe it as comforting, and I understand that. The ending earns its warmth. But for me, it has always felt more like a charge. A reminder that the work isn't finished. That showing up tomorrow matters as much as having shown up yesterday.

Part of what moves me is something I've only recently been able to name: the chain dimension of what George does. He saves Harry from the ice, and Harry grows up to save a transport full of troops during the war, and those men go home to their families and their towns. George never sees any of that. He just pulled a kid out of frozen water because his brother needed pulling out. The ripples go where they go, long after the moment is gone. That's not a comforting thought, exactly. It's a clarifying one. The things we do for the people in front of us travel farther than we can see, in directions we'll never know.

This year drove that home more than most. I lost Maddie, our big yellow Lab, in February, and she took a piece of the house with her. Ted came home from school to sit with her near the end, which told me something about the kind of person he's becoming; maybe the years of showing up helped to make him that way. In June, Kailey walked across a graduation stage, and I stood there calculating all the years that led to that afternoon. The teachers, coaches, quiet presences that never get named in a commencement program. The chain of people who showed up.

I think about Bill Peters, who spent four decades at Crescenta Valley Little League keeping the Rally Tally and answering questions nobody else could, mostly because he couldn't stop caring about the kids. I did a lot of his work this past spring. His name doesn't appear anywhere in those results. The kids who ran to check if their names were in print didn't know, and don't know, what it cost him to put it together every week. But it shaped them. It shaped me. I think about Yoko, too, whose quiet, steadying presence made me better at my job for nearly a decade, and who was gone without warning in the spring of 2013. Her name doesn't appear anywhere in the work she made possible either.

George Bailey finds out, at the last possible moment, that all of it mattered. Most people never get that scene. They just keep showing up and trusting that the chain holds.

The Verdict

It's a Wonderful Life
Directed by Frank Capra

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Most people reach for It's a Wonderful Life in December because it comforts them. I reach for it because it reminds me of something I don't want to forget.

The script is as good as anything Capra ever wrote, and the casting... Stewart, Reed, Barrymore, and the incomparable Henry Travers as Clarence hold up against anything from the era. What the film understood, and what most holiday pictures don't, is that sentimentality only works if it's earned. Every warm moment in the final act lands because the preceding two hours made it cost something. That's craft.

A version of this story gets made in almost every decade: the ordinary person who discovers their life mattered more than they knew. Most of those films are forgotten. This one keeps finding people every December because it got the thing right that the others usually get wrong. It doesn't let George off easy, and it doesn't let the audience off easy either. The ending isn't a reward. It's a challenge wearing the costume of a reward.

---

It's a Wonderful Life runs every December on NBC, and it's easy to find. Watch it to the end. Don't turn it off at the bridge. That's where the whole thing is.

Christmas Cookies

Early yesterday, as I was finishing up the hustle and bustle of wrapping presents and getting things ready for Christmas morning, I decided to write a blog post about some of the feelings I was having, feelings that I thought were tied to this particular Christmas.

As I was writing that post, I had the epiphany that many of my fondest memories (of Christmases past) were wrapped around the cooking, and baking, that my Mom (and Great-Grandmother) did to make the holidays a special treat. Over the years, I have asked my Mom to send me recipes for many of those special family treats, and I have the tattered remains of several printed out e-mails containing our family's "secret recipes". But I always have a hard time locating them when I really need them, so now that the kids have left to go to their mother's house, I thought I would take the opportunity to share some of the recipes in this blog (providing both an archive of the the recipe, and a chance to pass the recipes along to family and friends...).

So first up are three of Santa's (and, coincidentally, my) all-time favorite cookie recipes from Mom's kitchen:

Almond Crescents

This is a very basic tea cookie recipe, but I always associate them with my Mom's Christmas cookies. They're very buttery with a pronounced almond flavor, and they are a rich treat with a cup of eggnog, or your favorite tea...

1 lb butter
3/4 cup of confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons Kirsch or white rum
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 cups of flower
4 cups ground almonds

Preheat oven to 350°F

Cream butter until light and fluffy,
Add sugar, then vanilla and liqueur. Beat in flower and then almonds - the dough will be very stiff.

Pinch off 1 tablespoon of dough and form into crescent.
Roll in confectioners sugar, and place on cookie sheet.
Bake at 350°F for 20 minutes until golden brown.
Remove from cookie sheet while still hot and roll in confectioners sugar again.
Place on wax paper to cool, and use wax paper to separate layers while storing.

Toffee Squares

These are the perfect cookie for office cookie exchanges, they make great gifts for neighbors and staff, but in my experience, Santa really loves these!

1/2 lb butter (2 sticks)
1 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 large Hershey bars (1 lb size)
1 cup finely chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350°F

Cream butter until fluffy. Add sugar a little at a time, creaming until sugar dissolves. Add egg yolk and vanilla to butter mixture, beating well. Then add flour a little at a time until well mixed.
Spread 1/2 the dough in the bottom of a lightly greased jelly roll pan.
Bake at 350°F for 15-20 minutes till golden -- do not over bake.

While crust bakes, melt 1/2 the chocolate in microwave.
Pour the melted chocolate onto hot crust as as it comes out of the oven.
Spread the chocolate evenly over crust, sprinkle with half the nuts.
Cut into bars immediately.
Repeat for second batch.

These cookies are very rich, so make the bars small.

Kolachky

This little pastry/cookie's name is pronounced koh-LAH-chkey by my family (but how ever you pronounce it, they are delicious). The recipe came over from the Old World (Slovakia/Bohemia) with my Great-Grandmother at the turn of the 20th Century. Our family couples the cookie with a fruit preserve filling--apricot and strawberry are St. Nick's favorites! Other Eastern European cultures use poppy seed, plum, and cream cheese fillings (but any sweet pie filling will work).

3 cups flour
3 tablespoons confectioners sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/8 cups butter
2, 8 ounce packages of cream cheese
3 medium egg yolks, well beaten
3/4 cup of fruit preserves

Preheat oven to 375°F

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, then set aside.
Cream butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy...the longer the better.  Add egg yolks and beat again until light and fluffy. Add flour mix slowly and beat until completely absorbed--chill the dough until firm.
Roll out one-quarter of the dough at a time into 1/4 inch thick round...use a small cookie cutters to cut dough into 1 3/4 inch shapes (round, stars, hearts, etc...).
Make a dent in the dough shape with finger and put a 1/4 teaspoon dollop of preserves into dent.
Place one inch apart and bake at 375° for 15 minutes or until golden... remove to racks for cooling.

If you have some extra time, you can use this "made from scratch" apricot filling to pair with the cookies:

Apricot Filling

1 cup dried apricots
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon butter
dash of lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Put dried apricots into a saucepan with enough cold water to cover them.
Bring to a boil and simmer until the fruit is very soft (at least 15 minutes).
Drain off all the liquid in the pan.
Transfer plumped fruit to work bowl of food processor.
Add sugar, butter, and grated lemon zest. Process until quite smooth.
Stir in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. Transfer fruit filling to a bowl and
let the mixture cool before you use it to fill the kolachky.

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus...

Well, Midnight Mass has been over for hours, the presents are (finally) all wrapped, the kids are asleep, and I have a few minutes alone with my thoughts as I fall into my Christmas slumber (short as it will be, before the inevitable 6am wake-up call...). In this quiet time, I realize that I've been dreading this Christmas for the last several years. I did not know it would be this particular Christmas, but I have known that it was coming...a Christmas that will be filled with "lasts" as my oldest prepares to go to off to college, and my youngest makes the transition from true believer to Elf. The morning light will bring a Christmas filled with joy but also with some sorrow. I know Christmas can be like that, but this year seems different.

One of my family's Christmas traditions is to read a letter from Santa Claus--before we open presents. Every Christmas that I can remember has included a message from Mr. C. At first, his letter was written to my brother, sisters and me, but more recently Mr. Claus' letter has been addressed to my children (and sometimes me). Year-in and year-out, the content of these letters has largely been the same... Santa always thanks us for his eggnog and cookies (and whatever goodies we left for Rudolph and company). He always mentions the decorations, and how good the house/tree look. He tells us we have been pretty good "kids" (but still admonishes us to try and be better), and then he thanks us for believing, and challenges us to continue to do so.

I couldn't help but wonder, as I finished wrapping our presents tonight, if this year's Santa message would be any different. After all, the youngest of my children (who is almost 11 as I write this) has gone from being an absolute believer in Santa Claus to being a Christmas Elf. To be honest, I think she has known, since well before last Christmas, but was pretending not to know "the secret" for my sake -- For a number of years, she was convinced that the little boy in the Polar Express story was me (which, to be fair, I will admit to believing as well). But I was worried that she would be more than a little disappointed once I explained to her the historic Saint Nicholas, and what he has meant to generations of people.

At the same time, my oldest daughter is a high school senior this year, and she is already getting ready to leave the roost for college. I know she will be home for the holidays, but I admit to feeling a little melancholy knowing that this is a "last Christmas" for us in that regard as well. I am sad to think that my chief elf will be 3,000 miles away during much of the holiday season next year, but I do know that no matter how far she roams, there's still no place like home...

That sentiment is especially true at Christmas-time. This season has always been a magical and special time for me, and I hope for my children too. But I can't help but think that this Christmas (and those in the future) will be different now that my youngest is an Elf. I am worried that our traditions will fall by the way-side, and that "things will be different". But why? Many, maybe even most, of my best holiday memories come from the kitchen and my Mom's wonderful cookie recipes. Those aren't dependent upon the magic of Santa. When I look back, I can see how my Mom did a terrific job of making the holidays special in so many ways. I hope that I have done half as good a job for my kids as she has did for my brother, sisters and me.

Looking back at all of the holiday memories my Mom gave me, the most important was teach me to really believe in the magic of Christmas. So, let me state for the record, that I do truly believe in Santa Claus. I believe that he embodies the magic of Christmas, and I am proud to come from a long line of true believers. To this day, I continue to believe with all of my heart and soul, and to paraphrase Chris Van Allsburg, I can still hear his sleigh bell after all these years...

Part of the reason for my belief is that "becoming an Elf" in my family is a big deal. I still remember how upset my Mom was the day that I came home crying, because a neighbor kid told me that Santa Claus wasn't real. I was just a five or six year-old in Kindergarten/First Grade, and part of the reason she was upset was because her first son was still "too young" to know the secret...But, my Mom took this as an opportunity to induct me to our family's fraternity of Elves. From then on, it was my duty to keep the magic alive for my younger brother and sisters. To continue Saint Nicholas' good works.

I have had this same conversation with each of my children over the years. While the conversation has never ever gotten any easier, each of my children have taken up the banner and grown into pretty good elves -- I certainly have reason to be proud. So, why did I think it would be different this year? I'm still not sure, but I decided to try and prepare for the conversation with my youngest anyway. To that end, I thought I would look for some blogger inspiration -- after all, somewhere, someplace other parents have had the same conversations with their sons and daughters, so there is bound to be some good advice out there...

I have to say that I was immediately dismayed by the (somewhat overwhelming) number of blog posts and comments from parents who feel that the Santa Claus tradition isn't much more than a lie. It could have been my feeble search skills, but the conventional wisdom on this matter seems to be that these adult bloggers either don't want their children to accuse them of lying (seeing it as hypocritical), or they are worried that when revealing "the secret" about Santa Claus, their kids will question veracity of their belief about God and Jesus.

Personally, I find these lines of reasoning to be a bunch of hooey. Parents who have good relationships with their children, shouldn't be worried about being called liars. Part of any good parent-child relationship is how they communicate with each other about important subjects (and yes, I think this is one of those). Often times good communication is about good listening. Actively listening to your children's responses will reduce the chance of misunderstanding, dissatisfaction and discontent that your child may have upon learning this secret.

At the same time, I strongly believe that how you answer the inevitable follow-up questions, the kind that always arise like "what about the Tooth Fairy?" or "what about Jesus?" will have a lot more to do with a child's future religious beliefs. Belief has never been about what you can see, nor what you you are told. Which is why I titled this blog entry after Francis Pharcellus Church's editorial message to Virginia O'Hanlon. Back in 1897, Church got it right when he wrote to Virginia about believing:

Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

While I realize that I am simply a focus group of one, I can't remember being upset with my Mom because she had "lied" to me about Santa Claus. In fact, after getting over the shock of the revelation, I really enjoyed being part of my family's Christmas Elf tradition. And to be completely honest, my belief in Santa Claus has grown stronger since I was enlisted into the fraternity, as has my faith.

In a very round-about-way, I have already answered my question about how to discuss the secret with my daughter. The conversation took place several weeks ago, but followed the same script that my mom used with me, and the same one I used with my two older children. I am sure my daughter was a little upset when I introduced her to our family's Elf tradition, but even though she doesn't have a younger sibling (to keep the secret for) she ended up being a great Elf all during this Christmas season. I am so proud, and glad, that she has become one of my family's long line of believers.

However, if you really find yourself at a loss when it comes to explaining Santa Claus, I highly recommend Mary Anne Kamol's book The Secret of Saint Nicholas, which does a great job of blending the Bishop of Myra history along with Christmas gift-giving, to keep the magic of Christmas honest. She has done, in book form what my Mom did for me (and I hope I have done for my children) initiating the readers into the privileged fraternity of elves and as keepers of one of Santa's true secrets -- the secret only older children may know.

Although I started off lamenting that this was a Christmas of "lasts" for our family, I can now see that it is as much a Christmas of firsts. At once a new beginning and a continuation of tradition for both my youngest and oldest. It is also an opportunity for my son, the middle child, to step up and take his place as chief elf in our family tradition. I believe, with all my heart, that this will be the first of many new and bright Christmases to come...

To that end, I think I will sign off with a quote from the letter Santa Claus left for my children this year... 

I thank each of you for keeping me in your heart all throughout the year. Until I see you again -- have a very Merry Christmas, and remember, always believe! 

Love always!

Mr. C.