How to Become a Christmas Wizard

I’ve been thinking—a dangerous pastime I know—or should I say reminiscing about childhood memories of Christmas. I remember a glow. It sort of wrapped around everything like tinsel on a tree. It was golden; it held a warmth. Somehow, as the windows darkened on those frigid December nights, it softened the bleakness, the chill, converting the grumbling, growling wasteland of winter into a glittering wonderland, the kind of wonderland that turned Secret Santa into a grand adventure, or the drive around town to see the houses frosted in lights an epic journey. That glow had a way of making simple gestures and quiet moments, the ones illuminated by nothing but the twinkling tree lights, softer, more hushed, somehow removed from time and its weight. It was a feeling of peace nearly beyond language’s power to describe or delineate.

The strange thing about this seasonal magic was that each year, as age stole upon me and the inevitable worries that come with the accruement of time increased, it diminished little by little. With each year—adding to my chain of life like the links that entangled Jacob Marley’s apparition—the glimmering shine that wreathed the Christmas season dimmed by degrees until one day it had all but gotten snuffed out like Scrooge putting out the light of the ghost of Christmas past. Adulthood and all its incumbents had put it out.

Each holiday season that has come and gone since that depressing realization has brought a sort of melancholic nostalgia—a wish, a dream, a hope that by some miracle that Christmas enchantment might again manifest into my life like a flame springing into being in a fireplace. It has yet to happen.

Though this question has struck as I’ve written these words: what have I done to encourage the mythical fire of the season to take up residence once again in my heart and hearth? Have I struck the match or thrown the spark? Have I laid the kindling or organized the tinder? Without the appropriate preparations can I truly expect the blaze of the season to somehow manifest in my life from thin air?

The short answer: no.

And so, I have to once again make the effort to leave gifts on a neighbor’s doorstep. I have to make time to drive around the city to admire all the twinkling lights. I can sing a carol. Put up decorations. Trim the tree. Wish a Merry Christmas to those I pass. Go on snowy night walks. Bake cookies. Watch classic Christmas movies. Spend time with friends and family. Wrap presents. Share meals with those close to me. Enjoy mugs of hot chocolate. Go sledding. Build a snowman. Write Christmas cards.

In short, I have to put the candles in the candelabra and light them because ultimately if I want magic—the shimmering kind—in my life and the lives of others, I have to become the magician that provides it.