There’s Magic in the Air

believe-300x231I don’t know about you, but I am a Holiday nut.  It is my favorite time of the year; but I know for many it is not.
 
From my own personal experience, I know that holidays can bring up so much of our “STUFF” – unmet expectations, frustrations and stress with all of the materialistic consumerism,  sorrow from loss, etc.   BUT this time of the year can also bring about an unseen magic if you choose to look for it and that is what I consciously do — CHOOSE TO SEE THE MAGIC!

This is the time of the solstice and of celebrations of hope; something new being birthed from the darkness.

No matter where you are or what you celebrate, no matter what religion, race or creed there is no denying that there is magic in the Holiday Season.   It doesn’t matter what kind of candles you are lighting  –Yuletide, Menorah, Kawanza Kinaras,  or Yankee.

This is the Season and it is magical if you let it be so and if you choose to believe.  The magic is in believing in something beyond what you can see.

It’s a time to let go of the everyday mundane and indulge in child-like wonder and enjoyment of all that is around you.  It is a  time to be present in the moment and know and believe that in that moment all is right and divine.

I am reminded of that wonderful true story that took place over 100 years ago of little Virginia who wrote to the New York Sun and asked if Santa Clause was real.

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy…..

there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond….”

I invite you and encourage to simply BELIEVE!  To believe in all that is good and true just as if you were a child again. For without BELIEVING you cannot see what is truly around you.

Look around you … find delight & magic in the holiday spirit.  Enjoy all the sights and sound around you – the music, the lights, the smells, etc., give just for the sake of giving – a smile, a kind word, an extra helping gesture or act of kindness and most important —  give yourself an extra smile, hug and love.

May this Holiday Season — this magical, magical time  — be filled with love and generosity and devotion; may you believe that they abound and give your life its highest beauty and joy.  Then take that feeling  from this moment to the next and the next and the next so that each and every day is a magical day filled with the Belief and Knowing that your life is filled with the highest beauty and joy.

=============
Full Text of the Virginia Story

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

115 West Ninety Fifth Street

 

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.

We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, 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.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

yes-Virginia

—————–

“Is There a Santa Claus?” reprinted from the September 21, 1897, number of The New York Sun.

You can also watch a video of this story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aevy8jIBZmM