Believe

Do you believe in Santa?

Do your kids?  If the answer is no, when did they stop believing?

I remember as a kid, when we moved into our house starting to get skeptical about Santa coming down the chimney because we didn't have a fireplace and our chimney ended inside an ENORMOUS furnace.  The logical part of me knew Santa didn't emerge from the door on the side of said furnace.

Eventually I understood how Santa worked.  I am not putting spoilers here.  Who knows how many children may read this blog.  LOL

As I moved into my teens, you often heard, "If you don't believe, you don't receive."  Hmmm, OK.

As an adult, I consider myself one of Santa's helpers...I'll leave it at that.

Driving to work recently, struggling to get into the Christmas spirit, inspiration for this post came to me.

Christmas is next week.  Maybe Santa comes to your house.  Maybe not, maybe you don't have a house for Santa to come to.  Whatever the case, Christmas is a magical season, whether you believe a child was born in a manger over 2000 years ago or not.  Whether you believe in the guy in the red suit with the sleigh and 8 tiny reindeer or not.  There is magic in the air, in the music, in the greetings from friends in family, in your heart.

Maybe you are joyous today, maybe you're just trying to get through the day.  Either way is OK.

The world has been a crazy place for a while now.  It's hard to see the good in the world sometimes.  Sometimes I find myself losing hope.  Sometimes my hope lives in a glass half empty.  Thankfully it has never gone completely away.

I believe in Santa, in the magic of Christmas, that a child was born in a manger, that there is good in the world, in hope.

Do you?

5 Years Ago

5 years ago in a school in Connecticut, a madman with a gun killed 20 children and 6 adults; including the nephew of a friend.

I remember feeling the awful gut wrenching feeling as if it had been my own nephew, but I will never truly understand what the families of the victims go through daily as a result of this tragedy.

I remember praying; stopping what I was doing in my office at work and praying for the radio reports to be mistaken, for the first responders, for the news about my friend's nephew to not be true, for understanding, for peace, for SO MANY THINGS.

How could something like that happen?

Here we are 5 years later and I am older, wiser, and much more cynical.  My sister summed it up well...we crossed a line that day as a nation that allows this to happen.  Sadly, it now happens with more frequency and each tragedy seems to have more victims.

I am not going to debate gun control today.  I am not going to rail against those that think we should walk down Main St. with weapons drawn.  I am not going to pontificate on mental healthcare and how it fails people daily.

I am going to be kinder than normal.  I am going to smile more.  I am going to say a few prayers.  I am going to enjoy the little things today.  I am going to reach out to someone in need.  I am going to honor the victims of Sandy Hook and those who went before them and since; all victims of gun violence. 

What I do isn't going to solve the world's problems, our nation's problems or even the problems of the neighbors on my block; I am only one person.

But I can make a difference in the world and so can you.