This Christmas I find myself with a much different outlook on the holiday. I have always been the “Remember the Reason for the Season” type. For the most part, since my adulthood, Christmas has always been about family and being with the ones I love the most and not about presents. As I expected, this year I find myself in want of nothing more than being surrounded by family and watching my daughter take in her first Christmas. It’s just that this Christmas has me believing in magic again.

I am sure many of you parents out there know what I am talking about. Your first child’s first Christmas: It’s magical – even more magical than I remember my childhood Christmases. It’s more magical than staying up all night with my five siblings (we all slept in the same room every Christmas Eve, a favorite tradition of mine), whispering and laughing about whether Santa was just in the next room and whether or not he liked the cookies we left, and hoping he remembered to grab the carrot sticks for his reindeer.  More magical than sitting on Santa’s lap gazing in wonderment and awe of his beard. More magical than all the lights and all the cookies and all the endless fun with cousins. More magical than waking up to a beautifully lit Christmas tree surrounded by piles and piles of presents and truly believing that they were delivered by one man and his sleigh. It’s more magical because as a parent we don’t just feel the magic, we witness it in action. We see it in the eyes of the ones we love the most. We see it in their smiles of excitement, astonishment, and awe. We get the magic of  innocence back in our lives from them; it’s contagious and wonderful. I know my Annie has absolutely no understanding of what’s going on and what all this shiny stuff is all about, but it’s still magic. It’s the magic that, if we slowed down to look for it, we would see is present in our children every day. It’s just magnified at Christmas. It’s been a long time since I believed in magic. Do you believe?

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