Well, another Christmas has come and gone! It was, once again, a great time, but the most memorable thing for me this Christmas is when the girls received video emails from Jolly Ole St. Nick himself. As with any story, this one requires a little explanation.
Sarah has never questioned the existence of Santa Claus, but Kaitlin, who will soon turn 10, has started to wonder, especially since a couple of her friends from school have told her that they don't believe in Santa. Then things were made worse when the store we normally go to to take Santa pictures had a different person playing Santa. This was devastating because for as long as we've been going to this one place for pictures, it has invariably been the same person - in our family, this was the ONLY place to see the REAL Santa. The disappointment on Kaitlin's face was palpable and although we explained that Santa can't be everywhere all the time, one could clearly see the confusion and doubt....after all, "how is it remotely possible that the REAL Santa wasn't there?".
Fortunately, everything was taken care of when Nancy found that through Sympatico, we could send video emails to the girls directly from Kris Kringle himself. We uploaded a couple of pictures of the girls, gave a little bit of background information and a few clicks later, voila....Santa was on the screen wishing you a Merry Christmas and apparently knowing your deepest Christmas wishes.
I don't think I'll ever forget the looks on the kids' faces. All the doubts were gone and there was only bright "shine" in their eyes....how could it be otherwise as Belief was restored and reinforced by their jolly benefactor directly. As I sat there watching them, I realized just how important Belief truly is...it is the foundation of HOPE and hope truly does keep us going.
In my kids lies all my hopes and one of those hopes is that they never lose that childish, naive willingess to BELIEVE...I still do and I hope you do too!
Merry Christmas and best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010.