Winter is always consistently my favorite time of year. I love the cold, I love the presents, and I love the lights. The holiday movies always warmed my heart just as much as the fire in the fireplace. I could sing along to holiday songs all year, and going to see the Nutcracker ballet was a reason to dress up and spend time with my family. But, of course, my favorite part of Christmas was Santa Claus.
Whether you called him Santa, Kris Kringle, or Saint Nicholas, he meant the same thing to all. The thought that any person would have a career based on making the whole world happy on one day a year was simply inspiring. To believe such goodness could exist in this world was one part of the magic. The anticipation of presents was another.
Every Christmas Eve I remember waiting up late at night in hopes of catching a glimpse of the mystical and jolly man. Part of me wanted to see him in the flesh. Another part of me wanted to keep him mysterious. As I grew older, and admittedly more cynical, the part of me that wanted him to remain mysterious grew. I remember trying to get to bed as soon as possible so I wouldn’t accidentally catch m
y parents make a clumsy mistake, and reveal themselves as the true Santa Claus. Finally in middle school, my dad brought the topic of Santa up in conversation, very casually.
“I mean, you’ve known Santa isn’t real for a while, haven’t you?” my dad laughed.
No dad. But I do know now.
I mean, subconsciously I knew. I just had never said those words aloud to myself. And hearing my dad say those words out loud made it even more final, even more permanent. There was no way I could try to deny or hide from the truth anymore. I had to accept it.
But boy, let me tell you, as I’m sitting here, homesick and study-sick, I sure do wish I believed in Santa. In the midst of all the school stress and having to come in contact with rude people on a daily basis, I wish I had that something extra to believe in. It would be nice to have that light at the end of the tunnel: that fat, happy man sliding down the chimney just to leave me some presents. It would be so nice.
Sometimes I take walks through the city, especially when I am trying to avoid studying. And sometimes when I see the Christmas lights that are decorating almost every building this time of year, I feel like a little girl again. Innocent, and excited, and just looking forward to December 25. And it really is one of the nicest feelings in the world.
On one night that I decided to take a walk, I came home to a pleasant surprise. I’m an RA at Warren Towers, and live on an all-girl floor. Needless to say, they can get pretty creative sometimes, so I was a little nervous when on this particular occasion, they were waiting up for me to show me something. I followed them down the hall and into our common room. And what I saw can only be compared to a winter wonderland. My residents had decorated our common room with snowflakes, a fake fireplace, a construction paper menorah and Christmas tree. There were colored Christmas lights dripping from the ceilings, and bows hanging from the walls. Holiday wrapping paper covered the doors, and they had even printed out a picture of me and put a Santa hat on me. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that their hard work obviously took a large effort.
I think this may have been when I realized that my dad was wrong. Santa is real. He may not ride a sleigh pulled by reindeer, and he may not be fat, and he doesn’t actually live in the North Pole. But yes, there is a Santa Claus. Every time you give a Christmas gift excitedly, because you know hoe happy it will make that person, and every time you feel a pang of love when spending time with your family by a fireplace, and every time you sit back and drink hot chocolate and realize your year wasn’t half bad, and you are feeling really lucky. That’s what Kris Kringle is all about. He may be more of a spirit or a feeling than an actual man, but he DOES exist.
And the thought that my residents had worked hard on a night they could have gone out to make the entire floor happy and feeling more at home…well that filled me with more joy than a bearded fat man could have.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at BU chapter.