Thank You, Santa Claus.
Thanks to Santa Claus, or the lack thereof, my 40-year journey of preserving the “Holiday magic” led to its anti-climactic destruction. Yet, the idea of “Holiday magic” transformed to just “pure magic” that we are extra present to during the Holiday time.
Cover Photo: Visiting “Special Santa” in 2015, where Zayan (age 9) was excited to keep the family secret of Daddy being a “Santa’s Helper” while Kenza (age 6) and Kaysee (age 4) were sad that Daddy missed seeing Zayan as the helper elf for Santa! If reading on email, click on “read on” at the end of the post to see the picture.
—-
Missing Santa…
By the time I was six, I was convinced that Santa wasn’t real. I knew Santa wouldn’t come to my dad’s house because he didn’t celebrate Christmas, so I always chose to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my mom. Bless her heart, she did her best to create “Christmas” in our house with some level of tacky tinsel and a small tree, but she was a terrible Santa’s helper. Price tags were often left on items, Santa’s cookie and Rudolph’s reindeer plates were washed and drying near the sink before I woke up, and if those clues weren’t enough of a tell-tale sign, the real give away was the year I woke up on Christmas day (having just turned 6 years old a few weeks before) and not finding ANY presents under the tree. I heard my mom chatting with our roommate in the kitchen and I raced over to her. She looked at my worried face and said, “oh you are not supposed to be awake yet…go to sleep for 10 more minutes” not recognizing that Santa should have been fast asleep by 10:00 am on a bright and sunny California Christmas morning.
Even after the jig was up, we continued Christmas traditions. Perhaps as a child of divorced parents or maybe because I was an only child, but likely because I gravitated to stability, creating “Holiday traditions” became the pastime of the long Holiday school break. My mom continued to place Christmas presents out for me, though, it was never a “magical” surprise. The next year, my Christmas list was ignored and every/all presents that were given to me from my mom, Santa, and our roommate, was a book, wrapped by the bookstore. It was then that I started taking charge of my own “Christmas experience.” Throughout the year, I would wrap my own toys and hide the presents in the closet, hoping I would forget them by Christmas. I instructed my mom to bring those out and place them under the tree so that I would get to open “surprises” that I liked.
I need to add a note about my mom here, to feel complete: My mom was doing her best. She was a single-mother, and muslim, Pakistani immigrant, who had never grown up with the “magic” of Santa and Christmas. She did her best to navigate through the ways to introduce me to the Christmas spirit, from taking me to San Jose’s Christmas-in-the-Park to see the lights and displays, to finding Catholic midnight masses for us to attend and learn about Jesus Christ. Four years after that Christmas morning where she told me to go back to sleep, she would be diagnosed with Type 1 Bipolar-Schizoaffective disorder—a trajectory that eliminated the safety of surprises and the “magic” of an alternative reality.
By middle school, when I was just between Kenza’s and Zayan’s age, my uber-creative piano teacher took me to her office room where, behind her indoor Marijuana plants (pre-legalization), she had a “Santa helper’s station” with secret wrapping paper and notes with special curly Santa writing! There was magic in that small little room, and it wasn’t the weed! Meanwhile, that year my mom and I decided to celebrate Christmas one day later than the rest of the world, so that we could take advantage of post-Christmas sales. We would try to find “magic” in the store by splitting-up to “surprise” each other with marked down Christmas trinkets and goodies that very same night.
All of this is to say, that as a child I never experienced the care-free playful magic and at about 10 years old (Kenza’s age now), I had to grow-up and “control” my environment as much as possible to create a predictable, and thus safe, reality.
Discovering the Power of Santa’s Magic…
Kapil and I were 26 years old when we had Zayan in 2006, and we were smitten. It was then that I adopted the magic that I had seen in my piano teacher’s office and brought it into our home. Four short years later, just after Kenza’s birth (2009), we had surpassed that level of magic and we were all-in. Our seasonal house elf, Zooby, arrived in 2010, which brought a direct and daily access to the North Pole. Santa sent special handwritten notes in his curly handwriting and found innovative ways to surprise the kids throughout the Holiday season. And, for nearly a decade the kids and I (Kapil always had to “work”), visited the handsomest, Aila’s-hubby-like, charitable “Santa” and then, “Santa’s Helper” (when Zayan was also selected to help as an elf by the “real Santa” in the North Pole who needed to get ready for Christmas eve) for the City of Mountain View’s Police Community Event, Cops that Care. To top it all off, we created annual family traditions of cookie-making, homemade advent calendars, GPS Santa-sleigh tracking on Christmas Eve, and even personalized video messages from the “Big Guy” himself!
During our travels, and with extremely limited luggage, somehow Zooby surprised us in our hostel in Chile and traveled down to Antarctica in our expedition boat. In fact, though we were camping in Antarctica on Christmas morning, Zooby had clearly been busy in one of the kids’ small cabins, creating mobile Christmas magic just for us! Though at ages 12, 9, and 7, the kids were building their cases against “Santa”, they were mesmerized by the magic of 2019’s Christmas…
Zooby showing up after Thankgiving at our hostel in Santiago, Chile
105 Likes, 11 Comments - Franklin Street Globetrotters (@franklin_street_globetrotters) on Instagram: "Santa woke us up at our Antarctic campsite on Christmas morning. It was a magical moment on a light..."
Meanwhile, Zooby and Santa surprised us under the desk in our cabin on the Antarctica boat— with socks for stockings, garlands, presents under shawls, and a small Christmas tree night-light (behind the garland)!
A few weeks later, while out to dinner in Switzerland, Kenza grilled us. Zayan was already “more than sure” that we were Santa but didn’t press the issue. Kaysee and Kenza seemed to systematically piece together that “Santa was not real” and emphatically demanded that we do not lie to them. I broke. I confirmed their allegations. Then there was silence. Everyone’s face fell. Zayan mumbled, “it is the end of an era” and Kaysee mumbled something about “but how did Zooby get to Antarctica”—and I felt HORRIBLE. I turned to Kapil for some sort of consolation, and he said, “well, for as much effort as you have put into this for over 10 years, the reveal was a little anti-climactic.” It hit me. They “knew” all along but they, like me, years ago, had just wanted to believe.
Kaysee became irate. His hurt turned to rage that we had lied to him for his “whole life” and Kenza was so sad. Even Zayan, who hugged and thanked us for being the best Santa ever, was nostalgic. I quickly tried to save the magic by proclaiming that this year (2019) was going to be the ultimate “test” year where we wouldn’t help by being “Santa’s helper” so the real Santa couldn’t rely on us…and “so now we will see if the ‘real Santa’ saves the day.”
I really felt like I failed “Parenting-over-the-Holidays: 101”. I now realize, that I allowed my desire to “be seen for preserving their childhood magic” overrode their desire to “live in their childhood.” They didn’t need to know how I carried out a commitment to myself to keep the “magic alive” because by telling them, I was undoing the very thing I worked tirelessly to create. No joke, I cried myself to sleep that night and felt so very sad the next few days. It was such a raw heartache, that I couldn’t even write about it… And as the questions about the other Holidays/Magic—Easter Bunny, St. Patrick’s Day Leprechauns, and Tooth Fairies barraged me, I knew better and held the "party line.”
Finding the Source of Santa’s Magic…
So, needless to say, coming into this Holiday Season was bittersweet. I nervously embarked on getting out some of the decorations and to my surprise, the kids were very excited. Zooby returned and our Christmas traditions have carried on…actually with more gratitude than even in previous years. It is somehow become an unspoken family rule to Keep the Magic Alive and though they declare that Santa is not real and that the proverbial cat is out of the bag, they so want me to continue saying “that this is the year to see about Santa since Daddy and I are not helping him.”
What I am present to in all of this, is the beauty of “wonderment” and “surprise”. Coming back from the trip where those feelings were felt in abundance, I am learning to make space in my “every-day life” at home for spontaneity and serendipity—to be surprised by the magic of the Universe. The kids are seeing it too and we are finding ways to be in a connected space where we know we are all “growing-up” but are enjoying the “playful fun” of today. What does all of that mean? Well, it means that the kids are still submitting their “Christmas Lists” but they seem to look a little different than years past. Zayan’s list is money, rather than stuff; Kenza’s list talks about her desire for us to get back to more “family time before Zayan goes to college” (which will be in 4.5 years!), and Kaysan’s is filled with requests for coupons and experiences instead of “stuff”—and all the while, we are rooted in acts of community service and present to the consumerism and waste of the season. Our appreciation for our “family togetherness” and co-creation of the “Holiday Spirit” signals an arrival to a new (and hopefully, sustainable) “magic” for the foreseeable future.
Thank you, Santa Claus, for helping me find my own personal resilience and connection to my childhood in the mothering of my own family. This was an unforeseen “present” on my life’s “wish list.”
Kaysee’s 2019 Christmas List—experiences over “stuff” —though note the juxtaposition of wanting to do “older kid things” (i.e. Superbowl, Deadpool) while being a “younger kid” (i.e. sleep with Mommy and Daddy) :)
—-
Having touched down after 54 weeks and 41 countries of a worldly adventure, we are in the midst of collecting the "infinite secrets" that continue to appear in our lives. May 2020 bring you lightness and joy as you embark on your own "uncharted" path! -Kapil, Aila, Zayan, Kenza, and Kaysan
"Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world." -Miyamoto Musashi
"If you embark on an uncharted path, infinite secrets will appear at the end." -Bushido Wisdom
