Today in the English worship service I attended, we sang "O Holy Night." And as the music began, I found myself closing my eyes against tears. I was filled with joy and my soul leaped and shouted that first verse and chorus. And as I sang from the deepest places, the darkest places, I was reminded of a phrase in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath where he mentions Tom Joad's pregnant sister, Rose of Sharon, smiling the secret smiles of a mother. I found, as I sung, one of those secret smiles on my face. And I couldn't stop.
This Advent season is so real to me. Advent is about waiting and expectation and I've never waited for or expected anything in quite the same way as the arrival of my son. I thought about Mary and how she, too, expected a son.
I have to confess that today was a new experience for me. It's not normal for me to consider Jude's coming with a "secret smile," with a sense of peace or imagining that I will be a good mother. Usually, the idea of his birth is surrounded by feelings of doubt and uncertainty. But today, for the first time, I felt that I was meant to be Jude's mother.
None of these sentences are saying what I want to tell you. Today, Jude moved inside me when I sang about the coming Christ child. And something inside my heart shifted towards this small boy whom I've yet to meet. And I began to wait with great anticipation, excitement, and some unfathomable love I've not felt before.
Now it begins.
Jude, I am waiting for you, and this waiting is so sweet. I have not yet been made fully ready, but a few more months and I will be.
Christ, I am waiting for you, and this waiting is so sweet. Your love and your coming is the promise I cling to. You are what makes me ready. O come, O come, Emmanuel.
It is Sunday, September 19th. In exactly 3 months I will be landing in Nashville to visit my family and friends for two whole weeks. I have already drawn up a calendar and I am jumping up and down ready to fill it in with the names of family and friends and the places we'll meet. And yes, I'm already looking forward to Christmas! (It's never too early, you Grinches!)
However, I'm fatter than I'd like to be. I'm not as fat as I have been, but I'm not taking care of myself, either. If you'll remember, way back in 2008, I had plans to attend my sister's wedding in November. I initiated the Don't Be the Fat Sister Workout Plan and it worked. I lost weight for her wedding and felt great about myself in the dress I wore. Of course, I was still much fatter than my sister. It's impossible not to be with her trying so hard just to weigh 100 pounds. My goal isn't not to be fatter. It's just to not be the fat one.
So, without further delay or hesitation, I am reinstating The Plan. I'm going to update here once a week on my progress. For example, I'll weigh every weekend, I'll post my workouts, and I'll try not to drink too much iced coffee or eat donuts. My goal weight is, again, 140 pounds. I've plenty of work to do, so I'm going to get busy! If anyone else wants to join me in my 3 month battle against the bulge, let me know! It would be great to have some accountability and encouragement! Come on, we should at least slim down before we eat all that yummy Christmas food!
And to my family and friends: I'll see you in 3 months time. And I'm gonna look gooood!
Oh, and P.S. If you're reading in Google Reader, click over to Wonju Wife to see the new design! I'm not totally happy with it yet, but it's getting there. Let me know what you think, lovelies!
This is when Santa existed no longer! I loved Christmas. For all the wrong reasons. Christmas was nothing to me when I was little, other than presents and good food. Christmas was all about me and that is why I loved it. The meaning behind Christmas meant nothing to me. I sat through my mother's Bible reading every year and rolled my eyes to myself thinking "Jesus is cool...but Santa is better." Though my mom tried her hardest to make Christmas meaningful, I had nothing to do with all that.
Christmas Eve would come and the clock would slow down, I swear. The Christmas Eve service lasted too long, and I would kick my leg constantly. Even when my mom put her hand on my leg and gave me the stink eye, I didnt stop. She would whisper, "Everyone on this pew can feel that!" Still didn't stop! How could you sit still when in mere hours Santa was going to come down your chimney? The service would FINALLY end and Mom would want to chat. I mean, how can you hold idle conversation when presents are coming? "Let's go Mom! If we aren't home, Santa will pass the log cabin on Poplarwood Road!"
When the garage door would rise and we were finally home, the anticipation grew. It was almost time. I would put my pajamas on and get on the couch and watch TV. Every year I would try and pretend to fall asleep on the couch so my mom would leave me there and I would catch a glimpse of the jolly man with the belly full of jelly. But every year, Deb would say to me, "Holly, you are not asleep. Get up and get in the bed." Reluctantly, I would rise from the couch cushion, give a dramatic little kick and sigh, and drag my feet to bed.
Each year, I NEVER slept. If I did, it was short and fitful. I would sit in the bed and listen very carefully to hear the sound of hooves and bells. Though I never heard these things, he never disappointed. I would get up around oh, 4 in the morning. I would go and wake up my parents in the back bedroom, jumping up the bed yelling, "It's Christmas! I think Santa came! It's Christmas!" My mom would groan and mumble, "Seriously?" Finally there was a rule made: if you can't see the sun, you can't wake anybody up.
The year of the bike, I went to bed with the dramatic kick and sigh and laid in waiting. But this year, I heard a noise. However, it was not hooves or bells, or the jolly laugh of the fat man. It was a low moan and a shake of the christmas tree. Excited, I rose. And then stopped. Should I really see Santa?? I mean, is it allowed? Will he be mad at me? I heard another noise and could not help myself. I swore to be very quiet and tiptoe and only see Santa with one eye, because the other would still be hidden behind the door frame. That way, Santa couldnt be mad, because he would never know I saw him. As I very quietly leaned ever so slightly around the door frame I gasped! What is this? This is no man with a red suit. This is my mother's behind covered in her pink bath robe as she bends over my brand new bike. Wait. BRAND NEW BIKE? OH YEAH!!! Wait, Wait, don't get side tracked....WHERE. IS. SANTA?? Why isn't he setting my bike under the tree?? Is it true? Could Kevin McCallisters brother Buzz be correct??? NO SANTA??? Does this mean Rudolph is a lie too?? And the elfs? How could this be? I'm so sad...but I still get presents, so does it matter who they come from? No. I guess it doesn't. As long as presents really exist, I'm cool. Okay, the panic has subsided!
So, as my mom continues to grab presents and I continue to duck my head inside my room when she is turned toward the hallway, I watch how hard she works to set things just so. And I am thankful she loves me and cares how the presents are set when my sister, with her bedhead, and me, with Grover in tow, walk down the hallway into the living room.
The dream of Santa was a sad one to lose. I felt I needed to keep this revelation to myself so next year I would still get presents from this ‘Santa’ And I carried on this charade for a long time. Even when my mother knew I didn't believe, I refused to let her wrap all the presents. Some still had to be unwrapped and presented as from Santa. Even at 19, Santa still came to the log cabin on Poplarwood Road.
Holly (aka The Sisda) lives in Tennessee with her husband Matt, and her three stinky fatty dogs, Billie Jean, Semper Fi, and Stella. She annoyed the crap out of her sister for about 18 years and then they kind of chilled and have been more like friends for close to 4 years. She is an excellent story teller and should probably start her own blog. Right?
Santa Dies in a Scooter Accident or My T.S. Eliot Christmas
“Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation […] And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.” --T.S. Eliot, “Journey of the Magi” (lines 21 & 22, 30-31)
The “satisfactory” feeling in the quote above reflects the mendacity the magi (wise men) felt when finding the inn where Baby Jesus lay. The moment changed them, but it was a silent moment on a silent night. Oddly, the events that change us are often inconspicuous. No bells. No whistles. No soulful guitar solos. Just the quiet acknowledgment of another spot in time.
And that mute “satisfaction” mirrors my realization of Santa’s non-existence. I can’t remember the exact age, but I remember being in a friend’s garage the day after Christmas.
“All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again” (lines 32-3)
Josh: “Nick, do you believe in Santa because I have something to show you that will change that.” Me: No!...Well, I dunno. Maybe. Josh: Okay, so do you remember that scooter we were using as a sled yesterday? The one Santa gave me? Well, look what I found!
My friend pulls out an empty cardboard box. The box has a picture of our scooter-turned-sled on it, a clear indication it was store bought. The receipt was even stapled to it. I’d already begun doubting Santa’s life; he was teetering on the verge of existence. But in that moment, Santa died. He died quietly and satisfactorily. Josh and I glanced at the box, looked back at each other, shrugged, turned around, and left the garage.
We, like the magi, “returned to our places” (line 40).
“Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence no doubt. I had seen birth and death” (lines 36-7)
Santa dies for everyone. We all have that “spot in time.” But that’s okay. For he is always alive for someone somewhere, reborn in children from the ashes of parental myths. That is why when discussing Santa—as when discussing poetry—you always use the present tense.
Nick blogs about his teaching experiences at nickxsavestheday. Nick met Danielle the summer of 2006 over Nabokov's Pale Fire, invited her to a book club, and the nerdfest has continued ever since.
Thanks to Rob, we now have Day 8 And a Half of the Christmas Blog Party! So, two birds, yeah?
First, I must say that I am shocked, shocked, at Danielle's gang-murder of Santa: it's like Kenny in South Park. Bring him back post after post, just so we can slay him again, lose innocence all over again. Way to go, Dani. What're you killing next year? Baby seals? Unicorns? The other day I overheard her telling the devil that she next year she might do a series on first dead pets. But I'm here to talk about Santa, not Danielle in all her evilness.
Now, the funny thing about Santa in my family is that right from the get-go, my dad, a Pastor, never really let us believe that Santa was real. We made good and sure that the Santa Myth was fully undermined, by opening presents on Christmas Eve, before Santa had made his rounds. We were reminded that "Jesus is the reason for the season," and each December there was "Real Christmas" and then there was "secular Christmas." Real Christmas was the holiness of the advent candle, the deep yearning of "O come, O come Emmanuel" and the transcendent satisfaction of longing, in "Silent Night" leading into the elation of "Joy To The World" - one of my first bliss-outs.
Santa was part of the "other" christmas -- the one with lights and bells and colors and drippy fun songs like "Jingle Bells" and "Winter Wonderland," and the climax of Santa's Christmas was not the nativity, but an orgiastic celebration of materialism: the opening of presents.
So when I was little, Santa was never much more than a tack-on that allowed the irreligious masses to celebrate Christmas, even without recognizing what Christmas is really about, or acknowledging that it mostly, really, belonged to us Christians, who hadn't missed the point. These days, I see things a bit differently. So instead of telling the story of when and how I stopped believing in Santa, I'll tell you the story of how I started.
My coming to believe in Santa is a slow, complex recipe with tons of ingredients and years of simmering, so here we go:
Step 1: Some time in university, a really tiresome crew of cynics seemed to follow me from class to class, poking holes in every assertion anybody made. In response to that cynical readiness to dress-down anything they came across, and reading some philosophers whose ideas amounted to the same: that arrogant prick poking holes in everything, destabilizing everything, to the point that nobody dared to speak up, lest they too be shot down (Jaques Derrida, I'm looking at you), I decided, basically, to go against that, because screw you, Derrida, and screw you, you arrogant smirks in the back row. It takes courage to make an assertion. Eventually this attitude led me to realize that, in a similar way, "yes" is simply a more fun default answer than "no." So I was ready to believe in stuff, rather than disbelieve, because disbelieving might be more "grown up," but believing is more fun.
Step 2: A Christmas Story. I didn't come across some of the best Christmas movies until after I left home, for some reason. I discovered Ralphie and his Red Ryder bb-gun in my first year of university, and not having watched it 24 hours a day on whatever channel it is that does that, the movie's sharp, intense shot of Christmas nostalgia and loveliness still gets to me. Somehow this story set in the '50s - way before I was born - feels exactly like my childhood Christmases, in the same way that Bill Cosby's early stuff feels like he's describing my childhood, even though I grew up about as demographically far from Philadelphia's projects as possible. The joy, angst, and innocence of childhood, and the charming affection the family members have for each other, are the roots of this Christmas film.
Step 3: It's a Wonderful Life. This is another film that I came to late. I can't remember exactly when, but it was also somewhere in my early twenties, and maybe because I didn't grow up on it, it absolutely made me cry the first time I saw it. And the second time. And the third time. And it has one of the great screen kisses, and one of the funniest love scenes (the bathrobe and the bush), and one of the most joyful endings out there. Sometimes a certain song or movie is like ripping a band-aid off all kinds of pent-up emotions, and this movie is that, for me, every Christmas. And the whole movie ends off in George Bailey’s house, and he’s with his family.
Step 4: coming to South Korea. I managed to miss Korean Christmas my first two years here, my first year because I was packing to go home, and my second year because mom had gotten sick, and we gathered the whole family in Canada for a final Christmas together. It was precious... but I still hadn't seen a Christmas in Korea. My first Christmas in Korea was marred by grief over my recently dead mother, and the dull realization that things were not going to work out between me and the lady I'd promised to come back to Korea for, while I nursed my sick mother in Canada. Christmas in Korea is not the most important holiday of the year. Not by a longshot. It's not even really a family day: a lot of people hang out with friends. It's mostly a couple holiday -- kind of like Valentine's day on steroids, with cheesy music and fake snow instead of chocolate and flowers. Being around that, it began to dawn on me, how important it is for me, on Christmas, tobe around family.
Step 5: And then I started to miss Turkey dinner -- one of the greatest North American traditions out there -- and next time somebody tells you "We're Canadian. We don't have a culture." ask them how they'd feel eating microwave dinners on Christmas Day. And the thing about turkey dinner, too, though, is the people: you eat turkey dinner, sure, but you eat it with all the favorite people who live near you: family if possible, or the friends who stand by you. Once again: the people who care about each other get together.
And that's the thread that ties it together for me. Family. Hence my choice of song. See, Santa IS part of the family Christmas. We can’t disown him. Heck, one of his names is "Father Christmas" -- the thing about opening presents is that yeah, we can be cynical and snarktastic about how Christmas is a corporate holiday or whatever, but it's still a family sitting together, around a tree, exchanging one of the oldest symbols of love: gifts. Santa is a powerful enough symbol to enable that exchange. And even though the modern, fat Santa first found his image as a tawdry shill for Coca-Cola, he's grown beyond that, and become a symbol powerful enough to inspire a ton of Christmas giving, not just to family members, but to the poor and needy. We shouldn't be so quick to dismiss Santa, when a lot of altruism is inspired by his image. It's a salvation army Santa next to the donation bucket, isn't it? If we were still pantheists, Santa would be thegod of giving and maybe also of family and celebration. Plus, he's miles cooler than that lame also-ran Easter-bunny.
Santa's part of that jumbled, Christmassy mess of signs and symbols that can be noisy and frustrating but which, ideally, ends up with everybody being a little more generous than usual, and spending a little time focused on the people they love. That's why, even though I didn't used to believe in Santa, now that Christmas has been completely unfettered from it's original meaning -- now that scholars have assured us that there's no way we could know if Jesus was actually born on December 25th, now that the X-mas backlash has led to the anti-X-mas "Let's-just-call-it-Christmas-again" double-backlash, now that it's gotten politically correct and twelve-year-olds can sing Adam Sandler's "Hannukah Song" but might not know the whole first verse of "O Come O Come Emmanuel" and "Last Christmas" is on the radio more often than "Silent Night" and it's all hyper-commercial and people can pick and choose which symbols represent Christmas to THEM, now that Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo cackles maniacally over all the Christmas confusion, my mind turns to my family, and to me, Christmas is about being around your family, and the people you love. Whether a family is gathered around a Children's bible, reading the Christmas story, or a tree, opening presents, or a box, sorting items for a food drive, it's that family togetherness that underpins it all, to me.
So that's how I came to believe in Santa: by coming to a country where it's common not to spend Christmas with your family, and by realizing that that childhood Christmas, even the parts my parents taught me weren't "REAL" Christmas, is a precious and wonderful thing about growing up, and I miss it, and I miss Santa Claus, the way I used to know him back in Canada. I still get the most homesick at Christmas.
This year, my Christmas homesickness has been more acute than usual, because this summer I went to Canada to see my family. We had a great old time, and I got to meet my adorable niece and nephew for the first time. I also saw my grandmother and grandfather (from my mother's side) and visited my mother's grave for the first time since the week after her funeral, and saw my grandfather for the last time before he passed away this fall.
The experiences I had with my family? Nothing epic or outrageous, just driving around running errands with my sister-in-law, while her kid's in the backseat, my brother and I getting our hands on the best beer in the store, and then cracking a cold one and making bum jokes, like when we were twelve and fourteen, but with beer. Getting my niece to dance to "Bad" by Michael Jackson, by pumping her knees and bobbing her top-heavy baby body up and down... and suddenly it's really sad that I can't eat some turkey dinner with them, and my best friend since 2005 is leaving Korea the Monday before Christmas, and I’ll miss him like hell: he’s my family too. But then, I’ve got girlfriendoseyo ready to celebrate with me our third Christmas as a couple, and a swack of friends (more than I’d anticipated) all signed up to have turkey dinner with me at my buddy’s place... and maybe this Christmas won’t be so bad after all. It’ll sure be different thanany I’ve had before, but I’m figuring it out, and if I can be around some people I care about, cool.
Rob blathers on about most anything and everything, sometimes Korea, but always with humor and videos at Roboseyo. He's been making Danielle feel a part of the expat community in Korea for over a year now and she truly appreciates it.
When I was in second grade, a friend at school told me that Santa wasn’t real.
I rushed home and confronted my mom, who shrugged and said, “Her parents just want all the credit.”
And so I still believed.
In fact, I would pray to Santa at night, imagining Santa and Jesus hanging out in heaven, peering down at little Ashley, making sure she was being good.
When I was in third grade, I found a toy in my parents’ closet that I later received from Santa on Christmas.
I doubted a little, but still believed.
When I was in fourth grade, I was in a gifted program. It was pretty much the best thing ever, because we got to leave class and go down to the school basement to play games and do activities. One day, we were playing a trivia game and the question was, “Santa Claus is a real person. True or false.”
“False!” every shouted cheerfully.
“Right!” our teacher answered cheerfully.
My heart sank.
No more denying it. No more glossing over the evidence. No more looking the other way when I had a sneaking suspicion that Mom and Dad were maybe possibly Santa Claus. No more pretending I’d never heard my classmates every year tell each other how Santa is a fake.
I know Santa isn't the "reason for the season," but a little part of that Christmas magic wore off after that.
With four younger siblings, the Santa charade continued for some time - which was fun, and I imagine having my own kids will put a whole different sparkle on the season. Putting out milk and cookies, a carrot, and a note was such a treasured part of the Christmas ritual. Admittedly, I was a bit stung by the whole Santa thing - even writing a philosophy paper in college about Santa and whether parents should tell their kids about him. In the end, though, I've decided that Santa is good for the soul and the imagination. There isn't nearly enough imagination these days - why not add a smidgen more?
Santa or not, Christmas is a wonderful time of year - filled with family gatherings, Silk nog, caroling parties, Candy Cane Joe Joes (sorry, Danielle, I'm sure you don't have these in Korea, but OH EM GEE.), seeing old friends, and time off work.
I can't wait!
Ashley writes about crafting for her Etsy store, green ideas, and loving her job and her husband at Our Little Apartment. She found Wonju Wife on Twitter about a month or two ago and Danielle hasn't stopped blog-stalking her since!
Hello, and welcome to my part in Wonju Wife's Christmas Blog party! When Danielle asked if I wanted to guest post about when I quit believing in Santa Claus, I was like, "Sure!". But at the risk of completely alienating all of Danielle's readers and causing tons of Christmas hate-mail to rein down on my head, I'm going to let you in on a little secret...
I was relieved when I heard that Santa wasn't an actual guy.
See, unlike all those children who were told the truth by older siblings, or got into fights about it on the playground, or happened to wake up and spot Dad helping himself to the cookies left out next to the tree, I wasn't sad or angry; as a matter of fact, my thought was, "Oh boy! That's a relief!".
(Now, before you start sharpening candy canes into peppermint shivs, hear me out on this one.)
My parents did the whole Santa bit. I saw the movies, heard the stories, even visited the guy at the mall. I could (and still can) name all of the reindeer. I bought the Santa thing hook, line and sinker. But you also have to understand that I was always a very literal kid. And while I loved the idea of free presents, there were more than a couple of parts of the whole Santa story that just didn't gel for me. In fact, if you think really about it, Santa sounds like a pretty sleazy guy.
Reasons why I was happy when I found out that Santa wasn't a real guy:
Sitting on some strange guy's lap is creepy. When I was in grade school, we used to have people come into the classroom and put on a puppet show about once a month. The cast of puppets included a little boy and girl puppet named John and Jane, and a big orange puppet in a police uniform named Officer Smiley (or some equally original name). Officer Smiley was always teaching the puppet children things like what to do about a school bully, what to do if you were lost, not to take candy from people you didn't know, and here's the kicker, not to sit on a strange man's lap. Now, I took Officer Smiley's instruction very seriously. He was a policeman and a puppet, and everyone knows that puppets do not lie. So what am I to think then when on one day a year, scores of parents drag their children to the local mall to see a bizarrely dressed guy who leans over and goes, "Hey little girl, if you come sit on my lap, I'll give you a candy cane"? Exactly. Pervert alert! Pervert alert! You know why all those kids are crying while their parents forcibly wrestle them on to Santa's lap? Because Officer Smiley specifically told them not to. (Perhaps instead of elves, Santa should have Officer Smiley off to the side, explaining that while you should not sit on any other strange man's lap, this particular guy in red had been cleared by the Puppet Police and could be trusted). So you can understand why the mallSantas freaked me out. I was just glad that the woman in the elf costume was there to get photographic evidence in case it ever went to trial).
He breaks into your house while you are asleep. Blame it on too many episodes of Home Alone, but I was terribly concerned about home security as a kid. And while I understood that Santa was only breaking and entering to leave things as opposed to taking them, it still bothered me. I mean, if an old fat guy could manage it, then the Boogieman wouldn't have a problem either. What if he saw Santa doing his chimney thing and decided to give it a try? It didn't matter if Dad checked under the bed and in the closet before turning out the light. The Boogieman could just bide his time because Santa had shown him how to get in! We might as well have a sign on the door that said "Welcome Boogieman! See Santa for Instructions". Never mind that he himself was breaking and entering, Santa repeatedly blew a gaping hole in our home security! (The fact that this never bothered Mom and Dad boggled the six-year-old mind). Think I'm overreacting? Try this: Just as you're drifting off to sleep tonight, imagine some strange guy slipping cat-like down your your chimney and skulking around your living room with a sack. Freaky, right? I guarantee that you and your trusty baseball bat will be up and checking closets for the rest of the night.
He's always watching you, like some kind of scary Peeping Tom. How many times did you hear some adult saying "Santa is watching you!" when you were a kid? Parents. Teachers. Babysitters. The mantra started sometime around October and ran constantly right up until December 24th. "Santa is watching you!" I was absolutely convinced that Santa was crouched behind the bushes under my window at all times, cherry red nose pressed against the panes. I used to lie in bed and wonder, "Is he out there right now? Why does he care if I'm asleep or awake? What kind of sicko perv watches someone sleep?". I never got out of bed to check though, because who knows what would happen if Santa copped to the fact that you knew that he was there? At best, you'd just get coal for Christmas. At worst, some Arctic explorers find your frozen corpse buried at the North Pole. (This is just another case of Santa getting away with more than your average Joe. Santa's watching your every move? That's fine. Adults encourage that. The creepy neighbor next door tries it? He gets a can of pepper spray to the face). If you ask me though, the "jolly old elf" is a stalker.
All this isn't to say that I didn't like the idea of Santa. And I certainly wasn't going to turn down presents. But it always bothered me that I was the only one who thought that maybe Santa was playing a little fast and loose with the rules. Finding out that it was just my parents and not a magical super-criminal did a lot to put my mind at ease.
Of course now that I'm an adult (with a proper home security system and peep-proof windows), I'm okay with Santa. We've reached an understanding. He doesn't break into my house, stalk me, or make me sit on his lap, and I don't taser him or turn him in to the FBI as public enemy number one. (Plus he still comes through with the presents...he just gives them to my Mom to pass along to me). Paranoid? Maybe. But any guy who has an official song that goes, "You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout and I'm telling you why...Santa Claus is coming to town" is not a guy to be messed with.
Officer Smiley taught me that.
Elizabeth blogs about her brood of kitties, her fantastic hair, and all things quirky at Quirky is a Compliment. She is the sister to one of Danielle's high school gal pals and was the first blog on Danielle's Google Reader.
Well, indirectly at least. "The Secret of Mana" was the absolute most coolest exclusivest hardest-to-get-est RPG (Role Playing Game) when I hit that critical pre-teen age. But it showed up, wrapped, under the artificial tree that humored my allergic sinuses.
It shouldn’t have. Three years prior “Snow Brothers” had done the same. Frustrated by an intermediate level the day after Christmas, I asked my mom if I could return it. “It took your grandparents a lot of work to get that” was the response. You can’t blame her. Being house decorator, cook, and present coordinator does not leave much energy to remember to string your child along on little white lies.
Like punk rockers, I can't remember what I wanted or if I even wanted to, but, after Snow Brothers, I remember wanting Santa to keep cranking out the gifts. Having concluded that the fat man in a red suit did not care if I "peeked," generally did not care about my self-absorption, and did not care about my wanting violent games (they never arrived, no thanks to mom!), I still wanted more with a zealousness that can only be matched by those for whom I advocated in Drug Court in my later years in life as a Public Defender.
In any case, my disbelief, like that of the average child, had degraded from new discovery to rusted object of lingering profiteering. The mutuality was readily apparent; my parents proffered no insistence of sitting on the fat man's lap; no insistence on letters answered by strangers; no insistence on ceremony except my assistance in dragging the fake tree from the basement to its Frankensteinein assembly in our ever-joyous living room.
(For the sake of easily influenced children and their parents, we won't get into how denial served my parents and I quite well from my early teens to my late twenties.)
To this day, I still anticipate token gifts or cards from the mysterious, obese, present- disperser. To some extent I've accepted role-reversal, shopping for miniature models for the odd second cousin. At home I'd glue a candy cane or two, and even act as the catalyst in larger gestures fueled by egg nog and other stereotypes. Straddling the truth like a fence, and a good professional, I have two pieces of advice to give:
1. If you don’t know this already, you don't have to power up the Mana spear to level 8 if you've got enough healing items. But the Sprite dies in the end. Like beliefs, confronted with transcendental dragons, often do.
2. Santa will bring you presents if you leave him cookies. So leave him some cookies, already. Chips Ahoy are yummy but at 1.99 per pack you can freaking buy two, all right? (P.S. I take commission so buy 3. Yes you have to.)
Darren writes about the Korean word for wedgie, taking yoga in another language, and the plight of the Native English Speaker in Korea at First-Level Korean. He sits two desks down from Danielle, is irrepressibly helpful, and obligingly laughs at her jokes. Sometimes.
When I put two and two together concerning Santa Claus, it actually happened on an Easter Sunday.
I was in like the fourth or fifth grade - I think. It’s hard to remember exactly how old I was at the time, but I know it was somewhere around the age that you should find out the truth anyways. However, I have a sister who is four years younger than me. I know my parents worked extra hard to make sure that me finding out didn’t affect her in any way. My parents would always tell us that Santa exists as long as you still believe in him. (No one knew that my sister’s disenchantment would come when her fifth grade teacher assumed all fifth graders knew the truth about Santa, and she said something about it in class. My sister went home from school in tears that day.)
I remember the excitement of venturing into the den to see what kind of goodies the Easter Bunny brought in our baskets. It was never quite the same excitement that comes with Christmas morning, but I was always thrilled to find chocolate bunnies and new videos to watch and the fun play jewelry.
This particular year, I found chocolate peanut butter-filled bunnies and chicks. They looked... oddly familiar. I couldn’t quite place why I recognized this candy. I thought about it during church. I thought about it during the egg hunt at my aunt’s house. Finally, while eating Easter dinner, I figured it out. It was the same candy that we had just sold in my school’s spring fundraiser.
I remember asking my mom about this. She told me that the Easter bunny probably just got it from the school fundraiser since he knew it was the kind of candy I liked. I wasn’t convinced. Like I said, I’m a smart girl. I just knew, right then and there, that there was no such thing as the Easter Bunny OR Santa Claus. But there was one small problem with this revelation. While I easily accepted that mom and dad brought out our Easter baskets, I wasn’t as convinced that Santa didn’t really exist.
When I was in the first grade, I slept in a bedroom in the back of our house in a little twin bed. My sister was only a year old at the time, and she slept in a crib in the same room. I remember we had been in bed for quite a while that Christmas Eve. She was sound asleep, but I of course was having the hardest time getting to sleep because I was so excited about Santa! As I tried to fall asleep, I all of a sudden heard something. I sat up. I listened.
“Jingle bells!” I whispered in excitement.
Sure enough, I could hear bells outside my window. I tossed myself back in bed and pulled the covers up. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried furiously to make myself fall right to sleep. Santa was here!
I told my parents all about it the next day. I went back to school in January and told my classmates. I just knew that I had heard Santa stopping at our house.
So when I discovered the truth about the Easter Bunny a few years later, I couldn’t quite fathom how it could possibly be true that Santa didn’t exist. I asked my parents if they went outside my window and jingled those bells, and they continued to tell me no.
I still get little warm fuzzies when I watch the Christmas movies like Miracle on 34th Street where everyone finds out at the end that Santa DOES exist.
My parents admitted once my sister and I were older that they were responsible for the bells, but in the end I think I sometimes deep down don’t believe that they did it.
Melanie blogs about running, volunteering, and her cat Tucker at Life is a Marathon. She has been friends with Danielle since 1997 and continues to give her sound advice and a few scrapbooking tips.
I am a Christmas baby. Specifically, the day after Christmas.
With a birthday so close to Jesus’, it has always been hard for me to get jazzed about Christmas and Santa and caroling and decorating. And every time I tell someone my birthday -- be it at the drivers license office, filling out paperwork for overpriced health insurance, whatever – they always tell me about someone they know that has a birthday around Christmas.
Then comes the question:
“Do you get shafted with gifts? Do some people get you something for Christmas AND your birthday? That happens all the time to my friend Soandso Whatsherface. I bet that sucks.”
Christmas and birthdays are, apparently, all about gifts.
What they don’t know is that I’m not an only child. In fact, I’m about the furthest you can get from being an only child: I have four siblings. And, while the whole Christmas/birthday thing sucked, my parents tried to make up for that by giving me a gift on each of my siblings’ birthdays (sometimes two on my twin sisters’ birthday).
That eased the material pain, but there’s always been one thing that I’ve always missed out on that seems like a rite of passage for most non-Jehovah’s Witnesses: the birthday party. I’ve never had a birthday party on my birthday. (For the record, my mom tried the whole “Christmas in July” birthday party. July is during the summer, though, which means that you are not in school and half of your friends are going to be on vacation. It sucked.)
And, not unlike most self-centered American youths, I was always too busy thinking about MY birthday to really put some thought into the whole Santa ruse. Also, you kind of resent the holiday altogether since all of the nativity sets and garland around your parents house overshadow the haphazard birthday bunting and last-minute cake.
Then again, I guess you could say that I never stopped believing in Santa.
My parents still label the gifts they give their kids and kids-in-law with “From: Santa.” I guess you could say that, in a way, I never believed in him. I always knew who to thank for the packages I would hastily rip open with tags written in my father’s jaunty cursive. Even the year that all five kids ripped through the packaging to find our first-ever family computer and insufferably loud dot-matrix printer, we knew our dad was behind it.
Now that I’m older, and hopefully a little wiser, I know that birthdays and Christmas and holidays are really all the same. They’re opportunities for a day off and a chance for you to count your blessings, and trust me, I am blessed.
Joanna writes about knitting, her lovely chickens, and living in Texas at Driving Miss Dallas. She has graced the Wonju Wife for quite some time now with her great sense of humor and sweet comments.
Which came first the training bra or giving up on Santa?
I was in fifth grade when I stopped believing in Santa.
How old was I? Who knows. I moved a lot and used the grade I was in as the marker. For example: in fifth grade I lived in Texas and thought I was Janet Jackson. Regardless of my years, I was still believing in Santa way longer than other kids.
It wasn’t just that I was idealistic. I had done scientific research on the subject.
Just like most, I had tested this Santa business in the usual ways. Sealing the letter before my parents could snatch it. Putting it in the mail myself. I was all about quality control. And yet, each and every year there beneath the tree was exactly what I wanted.
Mind boggling.
However, above and beyond all my tests I had hard proof that Santa existed. And it wasn’t from the cookie crumbs or letters with golden reindeer hooves. I KNEW Christmas morning after Christmas morning that there was no way my parents could afford the presents I received.
Santa was not just my sugar daddy. He made dreams come true.
For me, it was always about the feeling of Santa. I don’t remember ever trying to catch Santa. I don’t remember trying to hear him on the roof or calculate how he got around the world. That would be cheating, and besides Santa is about the magic of giving, not the catching. Instead, I would shut my eyes hard repeating to myself that the quicker I fell asleep the quicker it would be Christmas. The quicker Santa would work his magic.
Christmas is still my favorite time of year. As I write I am nursing my paper cut wounds from my self inflicted Christmas card mill. I’d like to think that while I stopped my letters to Santa after fifth grade I still embody the sentiment. Each year, without fail, there are presents under the tree from Fashion Santa, Epicurious Santa, and Literary Santa. Turns out Santa has diversified.
We are all Santa if we choose to be.
Claire reads incessantly, writes about all things literary , and ends every post with a perfect quote at Even Pretty Girls Need to Read. She has been leaving inspiring and encouraging comments at Wonju Wife for something like a year. She also read Twilight. Just sayin'.
I don't remember when I stopped believing in Santa Claus. I don't remember the putting together the facts that just didn't add up - the fat man, the skinny chimney, the flying mammals that weren't bats, and the way that Santa's favorite cookies, which I left on the mantel, just happened to be the same as Dad's.
What I do vividly remember, though, is the way my mom's face looked when I told her I knew Santa wasn't real. We were taking an early-December walk through my neighborhood, looking at all the Christmas lights, when I dropped the big news of my knowledge. I think, ever-practical child that I was, I didn't want my mother to go out of her way to go through the Santa motions needlessly. When I told her, she dropped down to her knee, put her hands on my shoulders, and just stared at me with the saddest look in her eyes.
I don't have brothers or sisters, and it was clearly a look that feared this was the beginning of the end of my childhood, her only baby's childhood. Looking back, I know that Christmas died a little bit for my mother that day. Although we've carried on our many holiday traditions through the years, they are just a little bit deflated without a need for the Christmas play that parents put on each year.
This year, for the very first time, I have a full-sized Christmas tree in my very own house. I've hung stockings above my fireplace. I might even buy some of those poinsettias everyone loves so much. But I know, when the time comes and I have children of my own, I'll be bundling them into the car and driving down I-95 to my mother's house each Christmas. I'd love for her to have the joy of playing Santa again, and for all that she's done for me, it's the least I can do.
Sarah is a DC blogger writing about her training, triathlons, and pup Cooper at Was It For This. She has been blessing Danielle with her kind words since last year.
Hello readers! I am Wonju wife's Hubbo, Kenny. I seldom write comments here but I must tell you that I am one of the frequent (but quiet) visitors, and one of the most dedicated mental supporters of this blog. I come here mainly to check how many pieces of cake she got from the recent blog post, because it determines the size of the smile today, not only for Wonju Wife but also for me. Whenever you guys leave lots of comments, she gets really excited like a puppy in the snow. She dances in the kitchen, rolls her body on the floor, plays drums on her belly, and lays a cutest fart on me as a finale. I laugh with her and I become happy too. So remember! You can bring incredible cheer to our little family with your little finger movement.
Now it's time for the Christmas party! I am going to tell you my Santa spoiler story.
Basically Koreans do not have a long history of the Christmas tradition although we have over 100 years of Christian history. Of course, now we have a big Christmas business and all the department stores are competing like crazy to show how much money they can possibly waste on the lighting decorations. But still it is really hard to say that we have a Christmas tradition for families.
In my father's time, Christmas was just one of the cold days. Free rice cakes or sugar candies from the town church were only things you could associate with the night of Christmas Eve. Besides, to get that treat, you should be a church-goer, or if not, you should promise that you will come to church every week. My dad never got Santa's presents, and although my mom received some Christmas gifts because my mom's father was a pastor, they weren't from Santa. They didn't know about Santa or simply couldn't afford to have him around.
When I was a kid, winter was always harsh for my mom. Struggling with my dad's humble salary, she could barely afford to buy the coal briquettes to heat the house and the cabbages to make winter kimchi. My mom, however, tried hard to give us some 'Christmas' in the western manner. She cut the wiggly pine tree branches from the forest on the small hill near my house. She decorated with cotton snow, some bells and balls, but no lights. For Christmas dinner, she put palm size choco pies with candles on the table while we ate seaweed soup and rice. At night she snuck into my and my sister's room and put our gifts next to our pillows. They were really practical, stuff like socks and pencils which she needed to buy for us anyway, but it worked. My sister and I were thrilled to find the surprise in the morning.
She was missing something, though. Santa. She didn't care much about Santa, or she didn't know how to play Santa since she never met the man. Now I think I didn't care either then. I of course knew about Santa, and I kind of believed in him. But he was just in my prayers, like God, not in real life.
However, one card from Santa changed everything.
I think I was nine or ten. On Christmas Eve, I pretended to sleep, waiting for my mom to come into my room. I knew she would put some gift on my pillow before she went to bed and I just wanted to see her do that. I heard the carol choir singing and my mom and my dad talking with the carolers and giggling, and I waited and waited.
I woke up in the morning and found a gift box on my pillow as usual, but this time with a card.
'근하에게
즐거운 성탄절!
산타클로스로부터‘ (To Kenny, Merry Christmas, from Santa Clause)
It was a belt with a buckle that had the picture of flying Astro Boy in the middle. Astro Boy was the most popular animation character then, and immediately I knew I was going to be the coolest boy in my apartment. And the card! Oh my god! I got a gift from Santa! I couldn't believe my eyes. I hoorayed and took the card to my parents to show it off. Wait a minute. Did my mom do this? Better ask.
"Mom I got a gift from Santa! It says Santa here!...did you do this?"
"No, it says 'from Santa.' Then it's from Santa, not me, isn' it?" Mom said.
"Dad, did you do this?"
"No, why would I? I'm not Santa. I'm your dad, aren't I?"
"Yeah, you are right," I grinned.
I went out to the play ground, and I opened my coat so everyone could see my awesome belt from Santa. The kids were playing with glass beads on the frozen sand. They were too busy to notice my new belt from Santa. So, I had to announce properly that I got my Astro Boy belt and that it was officially sent from Santa.
The kids saw my belt in astonishment and seemed pretty impressed. But Un Gyum, the boy who always hung out with younger kids to boss around them, sneered at me. "Hey dummy! There's no such thing as Santa. Do you still believe in Santa like a baby? The gifts from Santa are actually from your parents, you idiot. "
Huh! I was angry to hear that, but at the same time, I felt sorry for him. Probably he never received a gift from the real Santa.
"You know what? Actually I thought the same thing, so I asked my parents directly about it. They said they didn't do it. They didn't doooo it. Hello?"
"Then your parents are lying," the jerk said.
Then one of the kids (I think it was Suk Hyun) there helped me.
"His father is a pastor. Pastors cannot lie. It is illegal!" All the kid there nodded their agreement and I sensed my victory.
"My parents are not liars. Santa is real. I bet my life on it." I ended this argument showing my absolute conviction of the ultimate truth.
I happily lived for a while like a normal boy who believed in Santa. But it didn't last very long. I think it was around March when I was crying for a new school bag. My mom said 'NO'. I was sad and angry, because I really wanted to have a new bag. My birthday was coming, so I thought I should get it. So I whined, complaining to my mom.
"You never buy me anything. You never care about what I want!"
"Really? I don't buy anything for you? What is that you are wearing now? Where did you get your shoes? I bought them for your New Years present. What about your Astro Boy belt? I bought it for your Christmas present. What about all the stuff in your room..........."
Astro Boy belt for Christmas? So it was my mom and not Santa. The world got white. I couldn't hear anything. Because I bet my life on that guy.
I lost my real Santa then. But my mom kept doing her own Christmas ritual. Every Christmas morning I woke up and found a wrapped gift sitting on my pillow. I knew it was Mom, fake Santa. The strange thing was that I kept waiting for fake Santa. I think I am still waiting.
Kenny writes about his life, his wife, and his art (in Korean) at The Awesome Plan. He has been listening to Danielle talk since October 2006. And he should get some kind of award for that.
Actually, this isn't our first Christmas together. Our very first Christmas was in 2006 and we spent Christmas week in Israel, visiting Bethlehem on Christmas Eve and spending Christmas Day in Ein Gev around the Sea of Galilee. Christmas 2007 we were both at home. I was in Tennessee at the homestead, preparing to go to Korea in February the next year, while Kenny was on the job hunt in Seoul. And then last year, I worked on Christmas Eve, for no apparent reason, and made my fiance cry on Christmas.
So, not our first Christmas together, but our first Christmas as HubbO and ChubbO . Yesterday we went to EMart to see how many ways we could support China financially, and let me tell you THIS. IS. NOT. CHRISTMAS. Come on, people. There are only two Christmas decorations displays and all of it is hideous and made my stomach turn. Because Korea has taken the worst of every K-Mart discounted-after-Christmas-sale-item, added glitter and ghastly colors, and chunked it into one shelf and called it Christmas decorations. For reals. However, in the back of the store, there is this section that should be called Pay More Money for a Tiny Bit More Style and Slightly Organic Stuff. And they had more expensive Christmas trees and less ugly lights and stuff. What I'm trying to tell you is we just didn't have all that much to work with. And I was getting all depressed and felt like maybe Christmas wouldn't come this year.
However, we are magic. Because we purchased a few cloth ornaments and a small tree. And some lights. And then we decided to make some of our own ornaments. And this is what happened:
What do you guys think? I mean, I'm thrilled with it! Kenny is like the Master of Cardboard Stuff for reals. I had the idea and he executed it and then I put the string on the backs, so I did contribute. Kind of. And you know, we've had the Christmas music going on since the last weekend in October, which is also when I busted out my awesome Christmas tree shirt. But we also bought a few things to bring the Christmas spirit to the rest of the house, or maybe just to bring it to our bellies. Because, everybody knows if you need to get in the Spirit, you should go shopping and buy stuff, right?
And last, but not least, the Christmas kitters....
It's really not his fault. He's been ill. For forever. Or, I guess for as long as I've known him. Poor Bo. He's started eating a bit more regularly though, so that's positive! He's really not enthusiastic over anything, so I shouldn't be so disappointed that he didn't jump and meow and attack the Christmas tree. I guess.
Miso, however, has just the right amount of enthusiasm over Christmas. She tried multiple times to shred the rope of Christmas lights, punched the tree's lowest hanging branches, and basically made a mess. It was wonderful.
A wonderful little reminder that CHRISTMAS IS COMING, in case you forgot. This is from Jessica Hagy's site Indexed where she publishes a daily index card that helps her organize her thoughts "without resorting to doing actual math." I mean, hello? I NEVER do actual math. I do Danielle Math, as Kenny has dubbed it, which sometimes resembles real math but is always a little off. I don't know. Even Rummikub starts to give me a headache after a while; just looking at all those numbers starts to make my brain feel like it's done too many crunches.
I've been neglecting the old Wonju Wife blog of late. And with good reason, too! The HubbO came down with something last week that looked and acted suspiciously like (dunh dunh duh dunnnnnhhhh) Swine Flu. Oh yes, the influenza o' pig threatened to infiltrate our household. We went up to the hospital on Saturday to have him tested and they said, "We'll call you in 2 hours to let you know." Um, it's Monday. Still haven't gotten that call. We are guessing it's not swine flu and is probably just regular old boring-but-still-as-crappy flu. Anyway, not kissing is getting really old, let me tell ya.
Also, I've been thinking. I've been thinking a lot about travel as I'm working on our book project. And I have come to the conclusion that the thing you must do while you travel is wonder. You must wonder what life is like. And while you are wondering, you must never assume. Because when you assume you understand someone else's way of life because you spent a week in their town, a month in their village, or three months in their country, you lose something. Assumptions and knowing somehow put up a wall that keep all of the wonder out.
I'm going to start sharing a little bit more about our honeymoon and the things I learned about myself, about my husband, and about the world in general here. Those posts will serve as jumping off points for the chapters I'm writing, and hopefully take a little of the pressure off, because let me tell you. Writing for you guys: awesome, fun, no-pressure (okay, but just the tiniest bit of pressure) and rewarding. Writing for an editor: freaking intimidating, wet-your-pants scary, and oh-my-god-did-I-say-I-was-a-writer? kind of nervous. And it's scary. Because I've been given this beautiful opportunity and if I fail... Well, let's not talk about it. Let's pretend I'll just write my little wrists off and everything will be swell! Okay? Okay.
And travel isn't the only thing that's been on my mind. I've been thinking about this blog and what it's become. It's gone through a few transformations over the past two years. Honestly, I can't even remember what it was BEFORE Rage in the A.M. Rage was about loving and hating Korea, loving and hating myself in this country, and loving and hating, well everything. Then ChubbO Chubbington came along and I berated myself continually and lost a bunch of weight and complained about food and wrote about 500 posts on donuts. But somehow, it was still sort of about Korea. And then Wonju Wife came along. And now, it's pretty much about MY life (oh, and I live in Korea). So I've been thinking a lot about how I'd like to do something helpful, you know? Give a little back to the community that gave so much to me when I first arrived. So, that's in the works.
Plus also, I finally finished all the Harry Potter books. And dear J.K. Rowling, I am a little lost without Harry now. I have my brain back, but I was enjoying giving a large chunk of it to him and his adventure. Now, I must stop talking about him like he's someone I regularly sit down and have a cuppa and chat with.
So, it's Wednesday, the day before Christmas, and I'd just like to say... What the crap? Because I'm working today, like the rest of the dutiful Koreans who labor on through the holidays, but unlike all those super-efficient and disciplined Koreans, I have nothing to do. My principal told me yesterday, "So, you know that tomorrow is a play day?" "A play day? Well, now I know." "There's no English class." "No English class? So we don't have to come in?" (We already knew the part-time teacher had the day off). "No, you have to come here." "What should I do?" "You can just do what you want." "Riiiiiiiiight." I tried to keep the do you realize what an idiot you are? look off my face, but I'm not quite sure how successful that was. So, I'm here. At school. Have no class. Did some cartwheels in the gym to entertain my kids. Felt the disdain of the Korean teachers and their game planning closing in around me, so I have shoved off to the office to, well, write you a blog. Let's reiterate: At school. On Christmas Eve. No class. Not wanted. What. The. Crap.
Also, I've done one of my disappearing acts again, although this time it was not some ploy for staging yet another come back, because they are oh-so-popular here at the O of Chub. Rather, I'm writing outside my blog at the moment, working on a few things, and I'm very happy to be doing so because I thought I was dead, but turns out, I'm not. But seriously, what about last week when I posted everyday? What the crap? I just churned out the love for you, on a daily basis. Thought about you on the train and what I wanted to tell you everyday. Thought about you while sipping my caramel macchiato and munching my donuts (even though I swore I wouldn't have any more until after wedding. What the crap was I thinking?). Wait... what was the point of this paragraph?
Also, did I mention that I'm at school today? The whole day? With nothing to do? No responsibilities whatsoever. Oh? I said that already? Right.
It really doesn't feel like Christmas at all. I kind of found myself unprepared this morning when I woke up. I just sort of disconnected from Christmas this year, despite all my Christmas song listening and all my Grinch- and Elf-watching and hot choco-drinking. I miss the family and because I'm sort of the Watchman of Tradition, making sure Mom doesn't shirk on her Santa duty or kill herself trying to get the lights on the tree the right way or forget to bake those pecans I like so much, I feel like things are slipping away a bit. And I know that Kenny and I need to make our own Christmas traditions, but our first Christmas was spent in Israel, the second across the world from each other, and this one is sort of weird all around. (And can you really top Bethlehem on Christmas Eve? I think not.) So, in honor of my non-Christmasy feelings and my longing to be at home to sort of safe guard Christmas (or my idea of it) , watch this video. I make a Christmas mix every year, and this song always gets put on there.
It's Christmas Eve and I feel like it's just another anonymous day I must wait through in order to get to the next one. What the crap?
