WFM...Conversations with Corinne: The BELIEVERS and THE SECRET KEEPERS.

I was a late bloomer, believing in Santa Claus until I was nine or ten years old.. Being an only child, I did not have an older sibling to share the reality of the Santa Legend with me. So, I went on believing long after any normal child with a maturing sense of reason would have given up believing in . . .

JOLLY OLD ST. NICHOLAS

I loved Santa .and to leave a plate of cookies and candy was my yearly tribute to what a great and giving guy he is. No wonder his “round belly shook like a bowl full of jelly”! After all, how many millions of kids were doing the same thing all over the world? And being a polite kind of guy who knew how to be a guest . . . I just know that he would eat the cookies in every house he visited. What a sacrifice.

LEAN YOUR EAR THIS WAY
DON'T YOU TELL A SINGLE SOUL
WHAT I'M GOING TO SAY

After all why did he need to tell anyone what I said. God knew what I wanted and so did he. I had total confidence that on Christmas morning I would find all my heart’s desires under the tree. And the truth of the matter is that I usually did. I remember one bright morning when the pile of my presents was a little mountain that actually peaked at my shoulders. What I did not know at the time was that my Daddy and Mommy were my own personal Santa and elf. And the elf, who was always in charge of the wrapping, would take such items as underwear and socks which she separated from their usual packages of three, wrapped individually, and added the pile. Amongst the dolls, or Bobbsey Twin books, or coloring books and crayons were such common utilitarian items as tooth paste, a new tooth brush, a comb, and many other items that would carry me through the new year until Christmas rolled around again.

CHRISTMAS EVE IS COMING SOON

As if he needed a reminder. Wasn’t his whole house and workshop filled to overflowing with gifts for all the good boys and girls. It never occurred to me that if his house and workshop were so crowed then how could he possible carry them all over the world in one sleigh.

NOW YOU DEAR OLD MAN

(Yep! Better butter the sweet old dumpling up . . . just in case!)

WHISPER WHAT YOU'LL BRING TO ME

TELL ME IF YOU CAN

Well he wasn’t God, was he? So how could he know what I was getting for Christmas? And if my parents were anything like I turned out to be they would not even be sure what would be in my pile until the last store closed on the 24th. There was always a last minute treasure that would cry out, “Buy me!” which would come home and be paced under the tree so that the Christmas pile would be complete.

But one Christmas the moment came . . .

WHEN THE CLOCK IS STRIKING TWELVE

WHEN I'M FAST ASLEEP

The year when my mental clock struck twelve (or should I say ten?) and I awoke from my magic dream of childhood and entered the world that some who were much younger than I were already a part of. I no longer believed in Santa Claus. But I...

STILL BELIEVED IN THE MAGIC OF LOVING AND GIVING AT CHRISTMAS.

I never let go of that. Fast forward to about 1981 . .

DOWN THE CHIMNEY BROAD AND BLACK,

WITH YOUR PACK YOU'LL CREEP;

ALL THE STOCKINGS YOU WILL FIND

HANGING IN A ROW

There were three stockings hanging in a row on our fireplace that year. One belonged to eight year old Faruk, my first born. The second belonged to four old Martin, our adopted middle child. The last stocking belonged to one year old Aleisha .

Right now I am feeling like our pastor, Pastor Larry here. So far you have only had an introduction to the story. This is where we come to the actual story that I have planned to tell all along. Like our Sunday messages this story might be shorter than the lead in . . .

MINE WILL BE THE SHORTEST ONE
YOU'LL BE SURE TO KNOW.

This is not the story of the shortest stocking, it is about the “longest” one. (Well there was no longest one. The stocking that each child had was the same size as all the others.) However, if we had had age defined sizes for the stockings, this would have been about the longest one. The year finally came when our oldest, Faruk, came to me with a question in his eyes and asked me, “Mom is there any such person as Santa Claus? He is not real is he, Mom?” I had known this day would have to come soon, but I still was not ready for it when it did come. I remembered those many years ago when I had gone to my mother heartbroken about my own popped Santa-belief bubble.

Well it had to come, didn’t it? You cannot remain a child forever, can you? But when I found out it was at school. An older brother did not whisper his wisdom into my ear . . . a wisdom that would change the secular part of our Christmas celebration forever. How could I help Faruk see that he needed to keep this knowledge to himself . .

MARTIN WANTS A PAIR OF SKATES

ALEISHA WANTS A DOLLY
MARTIN WANTS A SOCCER BOLL

HE THINKS DOLLS ARE FOLLY.

So Faruk no longer believed. Would he miss the innocence that believing in Santa Claus signifies? What would happen if he told the “babies”? Well, I know it would not have been the end of the world. Still., I believed that hearing that they had been duped at such a tender age would be hard for little ones to understand. How could they deal with it when they were too young to understand the intentioned loveliness of a legend which had been carried on generation after generation for the joy and enjoyment of children. And it would be even worse to think that you had been fooled by your own parents! Such tender minds would not have the tools to understand why this had been done.

AS FOR ME, MY LITTLE BRAIN

ISN'T VERY BRIGHT

After momentary feelings of panic and helplessness, feelings that are familiar to parents when they face uncertainty about what to say or do, an idea came to me. Even after all these years I am still amazed at the cleverness of that idea. My “little brain” shone as brightly as the Christmas star that day . . . in fact it was brilliant.. I sat my beautiful boy down and told him my story of the two groups that people are divided into at Christmas.

CHOOSE FOR ME DEAR SANTA CLAUS

WHAT YOU THINK IS RIGHT.

I don’t believe that it was Santa who chose what was right for me to do that day. Rather, I believe that Jesus spoke to my heart, so that I could answer my child. After all, Jesus loves the little children; He said they should be allowed to come to Him; and He told us adults that unless we become like little children we cannot enter heaven. And, it was about how we celebrate the remembrance of His birthday.

Here is the story I told my son. Faruk, at Christmas this world is made up of two groups . . .

The BELIEVERS and THE SECRET KEEPERS.

A long time ago there was a very holy man who lived in Holland who had a unique way of celebrating Jesus’ birthday. His name was Saint Nicholas. After dark he would go around his city and leave surprises on the doorsteps . The presents were like birthday presents for Jesus, whose life was God’s most special present to us. The difference was that we received the presents . . . not Jesus. Children and their parents would look outside in the morning to find the gifts and candies Nicholas had left. After a long time Nicholas got very old and could no longer deliver his presents. Parents had thought it was such a lovely way to welcome the day of Jesus’ birth. So, they started to secretly leave presents outside their own doors for their children. Soon parents all over Europe were doing the same thing. When a lot of people start doing something, a custom is created. In our country Saint Nicholas became known as Santa Claus, and the custom is carried out to this day.

So, now there are two groups of people at Christmas time . . .

One group listens for Santa’s bells and sounds of reindeer hooves on the roof. They leave out cookies and milk for Santa as a way of telling him “thank-you” for what he has done. On Christmas morning they wake up before the sun peeps over the trees and wake up their parents. Together the family goes to look under the tree to find what Santa has left there and to take down their stockings that have “been hung by the chimney with care“.

Then there is the other group. Most of the people in this group are older. They are the adults, the teenagers, and the older children. By now my son’s eyes were like big dark brown saucers, and, looking into them, I could tell that he already understood. Still, I continued. I felt that this was onr of the most important stories that I had ever told my child. I went on, “Santa Claus is a legend, Faruk. Believing in him makes mystery and excitement be a part of the presents we receive as birthday presents for Jesus. Eventually, we all grow up and realize that Santa Claus is just a legend. That is when we join a new group that is very important. When we join this group we are getting closer to being adults.”

I told him . . . This group is called...

THE SECRET KEEPERS!

I went on to share with him how important his membership in “The Secret Keepers” group is. He now shared the responsibility of carrying on the legend of Santa Claus. He was now expected to keep the secret for Martin and Aleisha and the kids he knew who still believed. That was the rule for members of the “Secret Keeper” group. I told him that one day he would be keeping the secret for his own children. That seemed forever in the future, when I said it. My, how fast time does fly! He is now thirty-six, and his children, twelve year old Michael is now a “Secret Keeper”, and six year old Kieran is still a “Believers”. Back in those distant days he did accept the responsibility. Faruk was a great “Secret Keeper”. Martin and Aleisha had the years of believing that they should have had. When Martin was ready to cross over Faruk and I told him the story together. He was a great “Secret Keeper”, too. Aleisha eventually heard the story, but she had to use her knowledge in the treatment of her little friends. She was our family’s baby. Now she is a “Secret Keeper” for her three year old, Sam.

I have to say that Aleisha is an excellent secret keeper (and not just at Christmas time) even to this day!

Corinne H. Mustafa

December, 2009

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And...

Please never forget