Letter to Santa

As a Christmas birthday child, this season is magical for so many reasons. Mainly because it’s filled with hope, anticipation, laughter, cheer, love, and so much joy. It’s the period when it’s OK to act like a child and feel like one too. Perhaps more so than children themselves. We feel everything so intensely and the emotions that fill the air during this most wonderful time of the year are no exception.

You never get too old to rejoice in the magic of this season. The fact that it brings people together. It fills your heart with excitement, optimism, happiness, and so much love. Particularly if you get to spend it with people who mean the most to you. Because in essence, that’s what we spend all year waiting for. To celebrate the best part of it (and for some, a birthday too) with those we cherish.

We’re comfortable with being vulnerable and letting it show. Of how happy we are when we enter an elf factory, or stand under a huge lighted-up Christmas tree for a selfie, or get lost in all the seasonal decorations of a store. We don’t mind to demonstrate that side of us, because it’s a part of who we are, and it’s contagious too. Admit it, you can’t not smile at a (small-sized) Christmas-obsessed person camouflaged as an elf among large decorations and rejoicing so much that everything else seems trivial.

Christmas makes us all kids at heart. So, it doesn’t matter how many we’ve experienced, we seize the opportunity to write a letter to Santa. It’s just that we don’t ask for toys anymore. We ask for moments, people, and emotions. We ask that nothing be taken away from us. We express the urge for love, serenity, and happiness. For things to work out as we deserve. For our heart’s desires to be fulfilled.

When we start writing “Dear Santa”, it all magically becomes clear; what it is that we truly want, what matters most, and what’s important for us.

Writing a letter to Santa brings back that innocence we lose as we grow up, that belief that we have that the world will be as magical as we dream it. It reminds us that what we dream we can create, and what we imagine we can be, as long we have an open heart and mind…and just believe.

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Genuine Smiles

There was a difference between when she smiled wholeheartedly and when she simply forced it. Her aunt knew how to read her. She was just like her. The fake smile caused more muscles to tense. It was strained and didn’t seem natural.

We all have moments like that. When we feel obligated to smile and be courteous when in fact we feel nothing like it at all.

Charlotte saw so much of herself in her niece. Joy lived up to her name most times. But when her aura clouded, it could be sensed a mile away.

“The secret to maintaining that smile is to keep the child inside you alive”, Charlotte said.

Joy tilted her face like a cat in awe.

“Think about it: when we’re simply living in that moment, blurring everything around us to the point that nothing else exists beyond what we’re doing and who we’re with at the present time, aren’t we happier? We shift all our focus to that precise period of time that we don’t care about past or future or anything else that causes us concern and stress. We feel relaxed, playful, carefree, and genuinely happy. Your heart is open to love and…well, joy, and your mind is thinking positively by default. You view the world brighter because you’ve turned the mood switch to that direction”.

Joy smiled, her head turned back straight. The smile was authentic this time.

She didn’t need to say much. Charlotte understood anyway. She gave her a hug. One of those long ones where you wait for the other person to let go first and so you stay entangled for what seems like hours, laughing while you feel each other’s heart vibrate. The embrace was so tight, Charlotte could actually feel the crack that had marked Joy’s emotions.

“We’re all loving people the way we wish we were loved and hurting them the way we wish we were not hurt”.

“How different the world would be if we could – even for an instance – see things from another’s point of view, step in their shoes and view their perspective. How much better everything would be, if we could just let our pride aside for a minute and show some empathy to the people around us, particularly to those we say we care for the most”.

“Sometimes, love has a way of coming back to you”, Charlotte added, loosening the squeeze.

“If it’s meant to be, it won’t miss you. There is always a way if we truly want it”.

Snow Day

©MCD

The best thing about snow, is that it makes everything prettier.

Even if just for a day, the white blanket that covers everything brings along a serenity and peace that is constantly lacking from our daily routines, even more so during a pandemic.

Even if the entire city or country paralyses for a day, because of half a metre (more or less) of snow, there is a tranquillity disbursed in the air.

Even if you take a day off work because it’s ‘snow day’, it turns out that you have the most fun when you become a child again. When you wake your friends up from the very early hours of the day so you can rejoice that it’s snowing in the midst of winter, but the flakes are huge and constant for hours. When you arrange to go make a snowman and play snowfights in the white-covered park, feeling as though you’ve retreated to a ski resort.

Even if just for a day, snow lifts up your mood regardless, makes you smile broadly for no apparent reason, and creates memories that last a lifetime.

Snowed in

© MCD

There is something truly wondrous about waking up to snow. Pulling the curtain and opening your window to find everything covered in white outside. Regardless if it is literally freezing cold. At that moment, you just don’t care. Because it’s magical and you want to draw it all in.

It becomes even better when you get snowed in. It’s not your fault. You can’t control weather conditions. But you can enjoy them to the fullest. Because there is nowhere really you can go, other than outside on that white carpet to play. To forget for a while all the things that bother you, your troubles and worries, your stress and concerns, and just…play. Build a snowman, start a snowball fight, lay in the snow. Become a child again.

Perhaps that’s where the real magic of the season lies: in allowing yourself to act like a child; to view the world with wonder and excitement and let your mind be free. To have faith that everything will work out exactly as it should and be positive that the happiness will last.

So, go, go outside and live every moment of the present. Let yourself indulge in all the small things that make life so great and be joyous. Trust that everything will be all right. And wish that the next year that is waiting around the corner will be even more superb!

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Renewal