When I was much shorter and my ears stuck out of my hair, I always rode home from my Aunt Verla’s Christmas Eve party anxiously scanning the sky for a glimpse of a polished hoof or a sleigh’s gleaming runner, egged on by the radio announcer who reported Santa sightings between pre-recorded carols rubbed smooth and silky with long use. One year my dad spent all Christmas Eve night sitting bolt upright in a plane as the pilots waited for the fog to lift. That evening my mother and we kids slid into a ditch driving on the country road out to Aunt Verla’s, and I soaked my party dress wading hip deep into the snow to push the car out for the very first time, feeling like the man of the house as I waited for Santa.

After the party that night we drove to the Idaho Falls airport to pick up my dad, only to be told his plane probably wouldn’t make it until the next day. I stood there in a child’s shock, tears welling in my eyes as another man angrily waved a shipping receipt in the face of the airline attendant, as though yelling would make the missing presents appear. As we walked away my youngest sister called loudly from my mother’s arms, “Say him Mewry Chwistmas!” Both men looked up, a little stunned, and then seemed to remember themselves. The angry man smiled and lowered his receipt.

Human beings have a need to believe in magic, to feel a kinship with the fantastic and miraculous. Years ago, a cashier at Disney World called me Princess Paula, which could not have been more absurd, yet I blushed and smiled, and even had the urge to buy a few more items, which I’m sure was the basic idea. Disney even made it snow in Florida, pumping non-staining, non-toxic, and above all, non-frozen foam in the air from high above the crowd, where it floated onto the noses and hair of smiling guests wearing light jackets and queuing up for hot chocolate and popcorn. Every year Americans spend three kings’ ransoms on glittery glass and red plaid—a little fairy dust, some abracadabra, and poof, we’re all supposed to feel warm and cozy. Though sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we feel too sophisticated to search the sky for flying antlers or strain our ears for jingle bells. Instead we spend a fortune at the movie theater where Superman and Batman chase the bad guys, capes flying in the wind, a couple of uber-humans scrubbing a safe spot in a dangerous world. It’s really just magic painted over with violence to make it smell grown up. Read More