“Everything you can imagine is real.” ~ Pablo Picasso

It’s Christmas Eve and I am spending my first Christmas at this address. I baked a quiche for tomorrow and bread is in the bread machine. I have one package left to wrap out of the few I bought. I spoke with my family today. I went to a movie that helped me think and feel and shared dinner and gifts with a dear friend.

I am watching shows about Santa: is he real or is he imagined?

In the movie today, Saving Mr. Banks, someone says we restore order through the imagination.

I had to pull out my phone and write it in my notes, where I put down story ideas that hit me at odd times. And I was thinking of Mary Poppins, I was thinking of change, I was thinking of how what I believe will take me farther any day than what I know.

I am thinking now how the moment we say, “we know” doors close a little, curtains fall, listening lessens, and feeling stops its flow.

Beginner’s mind invites…knowing mind dismisses.

Is Santa real? In my imagination he is real and his reality restores an order of giving and sharing we can forget throughout the year with work and bills, responsibilities and needs, desires and obligations.

In the Spirit of Christmas we celebrate children and our own inner child wakens as we dream of all we want even if we know it’s out of the realm of the possible.

Yes there are the nay-sayers who point out the commercial materialistic truths of our capitalist consumer nation.

But it’s all a point of view, isn’t it? We can focus on the negatives or we can simply acknowledge that they exist and move on to celebrate.

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.” ~ Robert Fulghum,

It’s Christmas and even if it’s not your tradition you have to admit it’s a helluva of a story. And don’t we all secretly want our own personal Santa? Don’t we all want to believe in the goodness of giving, the love of family and the strength of love? Isn’t it rather nice that so many people all over the world share this one day? And even if now out of respect for differences I am more apt to say “Happy Holidays” isn’t it fun on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to wish everyone I see “Merry Christmas?”

We need our myths. We need our traditions. We need to make U-turns sometimes even if it means breaking the law and we need to live in the make believe with purpose because that is where we get our dreams.

I need to believe love is stronger than death.

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.” ~ J.M. Barrie

So I may not write Santa a letter anymore. I still am known to call my dad, daddy. I still believe anything is possible [I know I say it often]. I may not have wings but I believe.

I believe in children. I believe in love. I believe in giving. I believe in change. I believe in sharing. I believe in the Spirit of Santa.

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Editor: Rachel Nussbaum

Photo: Flickr Creative Commons