writing in the raw: making believe

____________________________________________________________________

Rummaging through ornaments, I pick up three of my favorites. A trio of polar bears, made from a kind of velvet elvis-like material. They all have this innocent hey lady, where’s the hot chocolate and cookies look when really, they’re eyeing the red-lacquered wagon. And they do it every year … ha! One bear climbs in as the other two take up positions pulling and pushing the wiggly little cart across the window sill. It’s a sweet little vignette until the “it’s my turn to ride in the wagon” starts. But we’ve all been there…

The snowmen, generally a more gentlemanly bunch, find a place around a sparkly tree on a quiet sill away from the bears. Greenery gets hung around my fire place (as much make believe as the polar bears and snowmen), and I light candles in its pretend hearth. The collection of Santas, with big bellies and spindly legs, have gathered around the wood-cut fir to admire the fine glass sleigh parked there and piled high with packages. Christmas music is playing and this year, snow surrounds my little place.

There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.  ~Erma Bombeck

I like make-believing. I especially like make-believing in Santa because he always has faith in what kids believe, seeing beyond wish-lists and into their innocent hearts. The right jolly old elf doesn’t just leave a doll or stuffed animal, but playmates who never tire of tea parties, building forts in forests, or turning sticks into swords . These rag-tagged companions never object to being dragged along on all the Lewis & Clark-like expeditions kids love to make.

     

___________________________________________________________________

I think kids do more than just see the world. Kids feel it, the vibrations and energies of what is and what was… they can even sense a shimmering of how great it can be. Yet, sometimes I wonder: are we clogging the channels through which children feel the world?

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?  It came without ribbons.  It came without tags.  It came without packages, boxes or bags.  And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore.  Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before.  What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store.  What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.  ~Dr. Seuss

Christmas has become just another money-making scheme mascarading as a Hallmark moment. It is filled with mass-produced toys and gadgets, all untouched by human hands until released from their packaging. The howlingly ironic thing is being inundated with meaningless things that ALL need to do something special and be something extraordinary. Do kids get a chance to recognize extraordinary? In what has become a staged play, where sets are dressed, packages wrapped, music cued, and Santa and/or deities are relegated as extras, just where do kids find special? Elmo, cell phones, violent video games, and designer anything own this holiday and, at large, our lives.

Then it hit me… in a moment of weakness, of utter sentimentality, I was shocked to discover that I can still believe in stuff. Like what’s best in us will overcome what’s worst in us. That’s all.  Yeah. We’ll fight to give our kids time to grow up and believe in magic.  We’ll recover ourselves from the junk and the consumerism. Heh. We’ll put down our cell phones, walk away from our computers, stop the damned texting and instant messaging, and re-learn how to talk face-to-face again. And once our line of sight is free, we’ll remember to tell our kids about standing on principles and to always tell the truth. Good God… and they’ll be peace on earth. One day, this will happen if we believe in it.  If we tell our kids this is what we believe. If we show them: the power of our beliefs makes us powerful.

People can’t concentrate properly on blowing other people to pieces if their minds are poisoned by thoughts suitable to the twenty-fifth of December.  ~Ogden Nash

Hey, hey there … oh shit. I have to go now.  The damned polar bears are grumbling that the snowmen have a bigger window sill and the Santas are arguing about who’s the best reindeer. Oh for gods sakes… the Santa on the Harley thinks he’s Evel Knevel…

hey you… and you… all of you… and fatdave where ever you are… happy holidays. and what would the holidays be without…

…a choir singing

some snow falling…

… or a little bit of Charlie Brown

^{Vince Guaraldi’s perfect score highlights “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” The snow in the second video is falling to Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time Is Here” also from “A Charlie Brown Christmas”}