Friday, December 25, 2009"Because she's dieting," my seven-year-old brother nods meaningfully to me as I pull out the milk from our refrigerator.
As I was shopping that day, I knew what my sister had asked for in her letter to Santa, and it, unfortunately, was not something I could afford. However, when I saw this Perler Bead set, I knew it was what Santa intended for Anna. After all, she was creative, she was artistic, and she was fascinated with the things that I had liked when I was her age.
On Christmas Eve, after wrapping the huge Perler Bead giftset and hiding it in my closet, I tucked Anna in, and waited for her to fall asleep before I pulled out a sheet of paper and began to write to her as Santa. I made the tails of my y's longer and more rigid, my n's, u's, and r's more angular, and my a's like so, with the little hook on top. In the letter, I explained that as Santa, I understood that Anna wanted a new bike. I had received, however, a request from Anna's sister Cindy that Anna be given a chance to experience one of Cindy's childhood hobbies, the Perler Bead crafts during her own Friday night church activities. I continued by saying that I knew Anna was such a talented artist, and that I hoped to see her take the Perler Beads and really go above and beyond in her creativity.
In ending the letter, I gave Anna an extremely encouraging pep talk for the coming year. I reminded her that not only was she Cindy's baby sister, she was also Daniel's older sister, and as such she meant a lot as a role model. I said that while I understood it would be hard, I was fully confident that Anna could be a wonderful older sister to Daniel, despite being only two and a half years older than him.
After offering the usual holiday greetings from Mrs. Claus, I signed the letter, "Santa Claus," folded it gently, and went downstairs to place it next to the now empty cookie plate and milk mug.
When Anna woke up the next morning, she was thrilled. I'm not sure if it was more because of the letter, or because of the nifty Perler Beads and the opportunity to work on my childhood hobby with me. I did, however, relish the look of pure joy on her face, and the hope and enthusiasm with which she seemed to radiate.
A few months later, on a visit home from boarding school, I saw Anna's Santa letter on her nightstand. My mother told me that the letter had meant a lot to my little sister, and it made me smile to hear that.
Last Christmas, Anna had already outgrown the idea of Santa Clause, and had already cleverly noticed too many similarities between Santa's handwriting and mine, despite my conscientious attempts to disguise my handwriting. I enlisted her aid, however, to help me bring a similar Christmas spirit to Daniel. With our little brother, we baked Christmas cookies, set them out excitedly for Santa, and came back down and ate them later after Daniel went to bed. In the morning, we watched as Daniel excitedly opened his presents, and then we all baked a birthday cake for Baby Jesus. For us, that made a joyous Christmas.
By this Christmas, Daniel too has outgrown the idea of Santa, or has he? When I came back down to nibble at the cookie, drink the skim milk, and put treats in the stockings, I noticed the sheet of notebook paper by the empty plate. In Daniel's first-grade scrawl was his Christmas wish-list for Santa.
This comes directly after our acknowledgement that Santa would only eat one of the cookies that we lay out because "she's trying to lose weight," so we should not waste any, and just put out one.
At our house, there is a tacit understanding that Santa is either our mom... or me.
Christmas has never really been commercialized at my house. My two younger siblings and I have never really been left wanting, because throughout the entire year, my parents have always made us extremely content. We have a warm and loving family and a comfortable, spacious home. All of our most basic emotional, physical, and spiritual needs are met, and then some. Our family is truly blessed.
Hence, when Christmastime rolls around, my siblings are satisfied with just a couple of gifts each, because they understand how much they receive throughout the year. We have taught them to count their blessings, and they have learned well.
I remember about two years ago, I saw the nicest gift at Target for about $10. I don't know if any of you remember Perler Beads, but it was a kind of craft that was popular between my preK and 2nd grade years. Basically you would put these little colored circular plastic things on these little spokes on a grid, which was often a certain shape, like a heart or a horse or something, and then we could put parchment paper over the completed pattern and iron over it. The heat from the iron would melt the little Perler Beads together and fuse them into the solid colored pattern that you'd envisioned on your white grid. I found the example below from an article in the Washington Post.
As I was shopping that day, I knew what my sister had asked for in her letter to Santa, and it, unfortunately, was not something I could afford. However, when I saw this Perler Bead set, I knew it was what Santa intended for Anna. After all, she was creative, she was artistic, and she was fascinated with the things that I had liked when I was her age.
On Christmas Eve, after wrapping the huge Perler Bead giftset and hiding it in my closet, I tucked Anna in, and waited for her to fall asleep before I pulled out a sheet of paper and began to write to her as Santa. I made the tails of my y's longer and more rigid, my n's, u's, and r's more angular, and my a's like so, with the little hook on top. In the letter, I explained that as Santa, I understood that Anna wanted a new bike. I had received, however, a request from Anna's sister Cindy that Anna be given a chance to experience one of Cindy's childhood hobbies, the Perler Bead crafts during her own Friday night church activities. I continued by saying that I knew Anna was such a talented artist, and that I hoped to see her take the Perler Beads and really go above and beyond in her creativity.
In ending the letter, I gave Anna an extremely encouraging pep talk for the coming year. I reminded her that not only was she Cindy's baby sister, she was also Daniel's older sister, and as such she meant a lot as a role model. I said that while I understood it would be hard, I was fully confident that Anna could be a wonderful older sister to Daniel, despite being only two and a half years older than him.
After offering the usual holiday greetings from Mrs. Claus, I signed the letter, "Santa Claus," folded it gently, and went downstairs to place it next to the now empty cookie plate and milk mug.
When Anna woke up the next morning, she was thrilled. I'm not sure if it was more because of the letter, or because of the nifty Perler Beads and the opportunity to work on my childhood hobby with me. I did, however, relish the look of pure joy on her face, and the hope and enthusiasm with which she seemed to radiate.
A few months later, on a visit home from boarding school, I saw Anna's Santa letter on her nightstand. My mother told me that the letter had meant a lot to my little sister, and it made me smile to hear that.
Last Christmas, Anna had already outgrown the idea of Santa Clause, and had already cleverly noticed too many similarities between Santa's handwriting and mine, despite my conscientious attempts to disguise my handwriting. I enlisted her aid, however, to help me bring a similar Christmas spirit to Daniel. With our little brother, we baked Christmas cookies, set them out excitedly for Santa, and came back down and ate them later after Daniel went to bed. In the morning, we watched as Daniel excitedly opened his presents, and then we all baked a birthday cake for Baby Jesus. For us, that made a joyous Christmas.
By this Christmas, Daniel too has outgrown the idea of Santa, or has he? When I came back down to nibble at the cookie, drink the skim milk, and put treats in the stockings, I noticed the sheet of notebook paper by the empty plate. In Daniel's first-grade scrawl was his Christmas wish-list for Santa.
- roller skates
- Shrek the Third
- football helmet
- Toy Story I and II
- Shrek I
- you can figure out the rest (<- his attempt to allow Santa to make up for what bases he may have missed)
By 11:45PM on Christmas Eve, it's already a bit late to be going about getting any of the things explicitly stated on Daniel's wishlist, but as for the last, I've been spending the last two and a half hours diligently pulling something wonderful together.
It's early Christmas morning, and as I watch Anna sleeping next to me on my bed and Daniel on his sleeping bag (he's insisted upon sleeping on a make-shift bed on the floor in my room since I got home this break), I can't help but want to bring them the joy of Christmas for all the right reasons, not because of the toys waiting for them under the tree, but because of the love that we have all been so blessed to receive so fully this Christmas season.
2:38 AM |
