reflecting on Christmas' past

Growing up my siblings and I were told about Santa. We watched the Santa radar on the news stations, the Santa Christmas specials,  we were occasionally taken to see Santa Clause at the store or festival...none of my siblings believed in Santa...but I did. I mean I really, really, really, believed in Santa. I used to pray to Santa asking him to bring me the toys that I thought would make me feel less lonely...the toys that would solve all of my family problems...I would just ask because everything that I was taught at Christmas time said that Santa could make it happen.Well,  Santa never made it happen...oh he brought me "some things" it was usually socks, underwear (weird), and the occasional candy in the stocking but he never brought me the things that I asked him too...I started to become suspicion and just believed my dad when he said "Santa was short on presents this year..." Yes, I was truly a gullible kid.

I remember one particular Christmas I was so happy because I knew that I had been an extra, extra good girl that year. I minded my father's instructions, I was nice to all the kids in school even the ones that were not nice to me, I crossed all my T's and dotted all my I's so to speak...so of course this year Santa would put just a little more in my stocking. Christmas Eve rolled around and I barely slept because I was listening for Santa all night long, and when the morning finally came, and we were told that we could open our stockings...I found just a few pieces of candy and a piece of coal....My siblings all got one too.....but they didn't believe in Santa..they knew it was a joke...but I ...I...went into the bathroom and I sobbed. I cried so hard because that was the morning that I knew Santa couldn't have been real. All the "books" movies..ect...painted a picture of Santa as one that rewarded good behavior not one that put coal in the stockings as a joke. I cried so hard and I swore at that moment that I would never, ever, believe in anything that deeply again.

Sad is it not? Or maybe you just find yourself laughing. I know there are times I look back and I laugh at my gullibility as a child? I believed in anything, and just about everything...  from monsters that came out of the toilet to fairy's that lived in flowers...I really believed in just about anything.

I can understand now some things that I didn't understand then. I can see why my father was always so concerned for me. Why he was a little more harder on me than my siblings...All though I don't agree with how he handled everything, including my belief in Santa as a child, I can see now that he was trying to protect me from my own foolish thoughts. It is no wonder why then when others wanted to introduce God into my life why he always combat it so hard. I think my father knew that I would come to believe in God, because he always saw in me the longing, and desire, for what seemed impossible to be real. I think also that my father being a man, that did not believe in God the way that strong Christians would present him to me, didn't want his easily gullible daughter to fall "victim" to such teaching. Yet this man that strongly protected me from Christianity also did not protect me from other teachings such as Santa. I continuously struggle through the teachings I was raised with and the teachings of Christianity as a result...But God is good I think that continuous struggle solidify my faith in Jesus all the more.

Some of it make me sad but then it also make me marvel in God more......God literally took this little girl that believed in Santa so vigorously and turned her affections from false gods, and idols, to the one true living God. I am happy to say I no longer believe that monsters will come out of the toilet or that fairy's live in flowers but I do believe that a virgin gave birth to God incarnate, Jesus Christ and through him the whole world can be saved. I truly never believed in anything the way that I believed in Santa after that Christmas....but I think the belief and faith that I have now is one that is so much better. I don't have to pray to God asking him to fulfill his promises to me...and hope that I am doing enough right things for him to do so. I simply just believe that he will do it, I simply just trust. I think that makes a very big difference.