As the Holiday season comes upon us, thoughts of sugarplums and candy canes are replaced with the gleam of "buy" in the eyes of shoppers as they peruse the aisles and push their cart toward the bright lights and the shiny globes.
While the world has indeed changed with time, it doesn't hurt one bit to take a step or two back and try and recall what made the holidays so special when you were younger.
It was magic, and the snow came down in gentle flakes and snowmen came alive and reindeer sailed across the skies. If you could bring this "magic" into the life of a child of today, then you and Santa are indeed partners.
The day-to-day life of today's young is filled with fear, trepidation and uncertainty. They know there is trouble as you watch the TV news, and even in the classrooms they are given drills "just in case" of a disaster, and they sometimes see guards in hallways and guns brandished on the media as the proof of being strong.
Childhood is so swift and adulthood lasts a lifetime. What is the harm in allowing that puff of magic around the holidays?
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Some say a child must be made aware of the hazards and dangers that lurk in the dark corners and along the road. Safety, of course, is an issue, but letting a child experience that special time of just being a child and laughing, imagining and pretending will be the glue that will hold them together when in adulthood they face daily pressures, governments gone awry, and just plain old meanness by fellow humans.
If you give a child a dream, they will see possibilities all around them, but if you show them all the horrors of "reality" then many times hope and building castles turns into depression and a non-caring for life, in general. It also doesn't hurt for adults to hold on to a bit of "magic" during the holiday season, as life will be there when your own visions of the beauty of a snowfall, to relishing the sound of your family's laughter and seeing the glow in their eyes, no matter their age, when you serve that turkey dinner or hang those stockings brings pleasant dreams at night. It doesn't matter how much you spend on a child's "wish" list as they pick and choose from the hundreds of catalogs that fill mailboxes at this time of year. It's the special moments and the Happy Holiday wishing that they see and hear in you.
If the money figure is what matters to them, then you have your work cut out for you. But in the long run, that prayer of grace at Thanksgiving time and that milk and cookies set out for that elf dressed in red will last a lifetime. That hundred dollar game will be there and gone, and a new one to replace it.
Which dream would you like to pass on? Me, well, knowing that my children saw the "magic" for a bit makes me feel just as "magical," and I can safely ask "remember when...." I can't do that with "remember how many evil doers you zapped that Christmas morning?"
Something to think about.
Freelance writer Arleen Kaptur resides in Solon Springs.
