Our annual visitor is named Jimmy The Elf and my 16 year old kid, who's name is Ella, is exactly like Skye. Jimmy The Elf has always shown up the same day we put up the Christmas tree. When the kids were little, many years they would come home from school to find all of the Christmas decoration boxes stacked in the living room and an excited Jimmy The Elf hanging from the ceiling fan where he had a first row seat to watch the decorating. Now that the kids (and Jimmy) are older, they carry all the decoration boxes down from the attic. As soon as the first box comes down the stairs, Ella immediately starts chattering on about how excited she is to see Jimmy The Elf and wondering (loudly) when he will show up. She is quick to tell people that Santa is real to those who believe in the power of LOVE and a little magic.
I love this concept: "If you are made to come up with new ideas, you get good at producing them. You have a deadline. Something has to be figured out. You do it." I have found myself stretched in this way with a daily photography project that has stretched and reshaped me in unexpected ways. Because I committed to a daily post, the photos have improved even as they have diverged from their original format. I am doing it. I have a deadline. Thanks for this.
Elves don't visit our house but I 100% approve of Ella swimming in a pool of swamp chestnut oaks while sipping on some milk, the best oak in the south! Good choice, Ella!
As the eldest of four children, I believed in the magic of Santa for so long because I wanted to believe. My mother would never let the older children even utter the phrase, "Santa isn't real." She'd look us straight in the eye and proclaim: "I believe in the magic of Christmas." The word "magic" was underscored in a way that told us we better believe in the magic too for the good of household. Mocking the magic would also trample on the worldview of my mother, a pre-school music teacher who held her Episcopal faith and magical awe as equal foundations to her delight in this life.
What happens when we build these rituals as parents and create that magic, like your dear Skye's belief in the magic of the Elf? Well, I've found in my own little household of three--just me and two daughters, 24 and 18--that the "children" start to hold fast to those traditions and later protest if you try to alter them in the least! We have a 900-sq foot rental, and my artsy neighbor has a wonderful retro silver aluminum Xmas tree, which she stores in the attic and brings out each year. It's almost like a sculpture with lights, and I imagined myself hauling it out every year, my own piece of Advent art.
The end of this tale is as predictable as the little Elf's reappearance each year! "We CANNOT get a fake tree!" my teenager said. This is the same one who just got a tattoo and who is so eager to live on her own--I can almost smell her need to get away from me like a sixth sense in our small abode. Struggling with a math class this semester, she begged me to get the Christmas tree this week to try and distract her mind from the calculus which eluded her. So we went to a corner lot by a gas station--it's not fancy at all, but it's where we go--and we picked out a tree. "Can I get one for my room?" she asked. "A real one?" I asked, knowing the answer. She nodded.
I paused. Why the hell wouldn't we have two Christmas trees in a three-room duplex? I couldn't think of a reason except my own need for order, so I nodded too. The kind, burly guy at the x-mas tree corner lot put the 5-foot and 4-foot tree on top of my car. "Merry Christmas, y'all!" he said, whipping out his knife to cut the cordage binding the tree to the car. As soon as we pulled into our drive, the high school boy who's fallen for my daughter pulled his car next to ours at home.
My daughter had made us stop at the Dollar General to get eggnog (this was a first for me--the Dollar General for their eggnog). "We CAN'T decorate the tree without eggnog!!" So I poured the eggnog into my mom's china teacups, and the new boy sat by my daughter as she pulled out the ornaments from a cardboard box: "This one was my mom's grandparents, and this one I made in preschool, and this one was from my mom's parents' home." He smiled at her, grateful for proximity, like every word was a gift.
Later that night, I overheard them while I was washing out the eggnog cups and dinner dishes. "At night, my mom leaves on the Christmas tree lights, so when you go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, it feels like magic."
So yes, just like Skye and my mother, we believe in the magic of Christmas and reclaim those seeds of mystery and awe year after year. Merry Christmas y'all--and thank for Janisse for sharing this tale--and allowing me to procrastinate grading for another hour! Back to it!
I swear, how do you touch my heart so quickly & so lightly, like a feather? This is a heart-squeezing story. Thank you, MM. I'm thinking of you & your daughter, here at Christmas. Big love.
We have a couple Tomte (gnomes) that one day my daughter took up creating scenarios with. One is naughty and one is good. She pretends she is not the one doing it. Sometimes I take a turn. I like that it’s all fun and creativity and doesn’t come with the awkward do they still believe part.
Our annual visitor is named Jimmy The Elf and my 16 year old kid, who's name is Ella, is exactly like Skye. Jimmy The Elf has always shown up the same day we put up the Christmas tree. When the kids were little, many years they would come home from school to find all of the Christmas decoration boxes stacked in the living room and an excited Jimmy The Elf hanging from the ceiling fan where he had a first row seat to watch the decorating. Now that the kids (and Jimmy) are older, they carry all the decoration boxes down from the attic. As soon as the first box comes down the stairs, Ella immediately starts chattering on about how excited she is to see Jimmy The Elf and wondering (loudly) when he will show up. She is quick to tell people that Santa is real to those who believe in the power of LOVE and a little magic.
Cheers and hugs to all the Ellas in the world.
I love this concept: "If you are made to come up with new ideas, you get good at producing them. You have a deadline. Something has to be figured out. You do it." I have found myself stretched in this way with a daily photography project that has stretched and reshaped me in unexpected ways. Because I committed to a daily post, the photos have improved even as they have diverged from their original format. I am doing it. I have a deadline. Thanks for this.
So sweet and so creative! Wonderful that you documented it over the years with photos, too.
I love this! It was so unexpected, and I love that it kept up until Skye was 17.
Elves don't visit our house but I 100% approve of Ella swimming in a pool of swamp chestnut oaks while sipping on some milk, the best oak in the south! Good choice, Ella!
As the eldest of four children, I believed in the magic of Santa for so long because I wanted to believe. My mother would never let the older children even utter the phrase, "Santa isn't real." She'd look us straight in the eye and proclaim: "I believe in the magic of Christmas." The word "magic" was underscored in a way that told us we better believe in the magic too for the good of household. Mocking the magic would also trample on the worldview of my mother, a pre-school music teacher who held her Episcopal faith and magical awe as equal foundations to her delight in this life.
What happens when we build these rituals as parents and create that magic, like your dear Skye's belief in the magic of the Elf? Well, I've found in my own little household of three--just me and two daughters, 24 and 18--that the "children" start to hold fast to those traditions and later protest if you try to alter them in the least! We have a 900-sq foot rental, and my artsy neighbor has a wonderful retro silver aluminum Xmas tree, which she stores in the attic and brings out each year. It's almost like a sculpture with lights, and I imagined myself hauling it out every year, my own piece of Advent art.
The end of this tale is as predictable as the little Elf's reappearance each year! "We CANNOT get a fake tree!" my teenager said. This is the same one who just got a tattoo and who is so eager to live on her own--I can almost smell her need to get away from me like a sixth sense in our small abode. Struggling with a math class this semester, she begged me to get the Christmas tree this week to try and distract her mind from the calculus which eluded her. So we went to a corner lot by a gas station--it's not fancy at all, but it's where we go--and we picked out a tree. "Can I get one for my room?" she asked. "A real one?" I asked, knowing the answer. She nodded.
I paused. Why the hell wouldn't we have two Christmas trees in a three-room duplex? I couldn't think of a reason except my own need for order, so I nodded too. The kind, burly guy at the x-mas tree corner lot put the 5-foot and 4-foot tree on top of my car. "Merry Christmas, y'all!" he said, whipping out his knife to cut the cordage binding the tree to the car. As soon as we pulled into our drive, the high school boy who's fallen for my daughter pulled his car next to ours at home.
My daughter had made us stop at the Dollar General to get eggnog (this was a first for me--the Dollar General for their eggnog). "We CAN'T decorate the tree without eggnog!!" So I poured the eggnog into my mom's china teacups, and the new boy sat by my daughter as she pulled out the ornaments from a cardboard box: "This one was my mom's grandparents, and this one I made in preschool, and this one was from my mom's parents' home." He smiled at her, grateful for proximity, like every word was a gift.
Later that night, I overheard them while I was washing out the eggnog cups and dinner dishes. "At night, my mom leaves on the Christmas tree lights, so when you go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, it feels like magic."
So yes, just like Skye and my mother, we believe in the magic of Christmas and reclaim those seeds of mystery and awe year after year. Merry Christmas y'all--and thank for Janisse for sharing this tale--and allowing me to procrastinate grading for another hour! Back to it!
I swear, how do you touch my heart so quickly & so lightly, like a feather? This is a heart-squeezing story. Thank you, MM. I'm thinking of you & your daughter, here at Christmas. Big love.
The joy of playing with action figures never gets old!
Keep the magic alive. Yes.
We have a couple Tomte (gnomes) that one day my daughter took up creating scenarios with. One is naughty and one is good. She pretends she is not the one doing it. Sometimes I take a turn. I like that it’s all fun and creativity and doesn’t come with the awkward do they still believe part.