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Sometimes, I wish I was 7 years old again. Not just because I could eat 5 cookies without gaining an ounce or take a running dive onto a Slip’N’Slide without breaking anything. Those were great benefits of the age, don’t get me wrong, but one of the biggest reasons I yearn for childhood again? Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve Meant Magic

Even though I was slightly jealous of all my Jewish friends during the month of December when they bragged about having 8 nights of presents, on Christmas Eve, I felt like the luckiest kid in the world. Christmas Eve was magic. Christmas Eve was when my wildly active imagination finally felt vindicated: flying reindeer and some guy coming through a chimney? Surely these things meant Reality wasn’t as boring as everyone kept telling me it was.

Christmas Eve was not a night for sleeping. It was a night for huddling under fleece blankets, straining to hear the slightest hoof tap on the roof, the slightest rustle of the tree, the faintest Ho Ho Ho off in the distance. I could taste the magic in the air. I could taste it like the dusting off my Aunt’s yearly sugar cookies. Squinting my eyes and flexing my toes in excitement, I would thank Whoever Was Up There for giving me such an awesome night.

Christmas Eve was so full of light and joy, it actually taught me to pray.

Unearthing That Childhood Magic

Now that I’m an adult, the holiday season is more about shaking the sugar off those cookies and willing myself not to crumple in the middle of a teeming mass of people at the mall. The magic of Christmas Eve is often replaced by a slight depression stemming from a slim wallet and too many diamond commercials (”Feel bad there’s no one in your life giving you an expensive rock!“). I can think back to those childhood Christmas Eves and smile, but capturing some of that sweet magic seems like a near impossibility. Adulthood is too crowded with Important Stuff for magic.

Or is it?

What if this year, instead of being bothered by mass consumption and the media’s strange desire to get us all married off and clothed in turtlenecks, I focused my energy on finding the joy this night is so famous for? If I think about it, the things that make me believe in magic these days aren’t so hard to find; the laughter of a good friend, dancing to my favorite song, the Christmas Story movie, writing, talking to the Person Upstairs…in fact, there’s so much that makes me happy I really have no excuse not to smile.

As we get older, we tend to convince ourselves that the joy we felt as children can never inhabit our hearts again. This Christmas Eve, I’m turning that thought around. Childhood joy always inhabits our hearts – it’s just the triggers that change.

This year, no matter what you believe, I wish for you to find your own personal magic again. Find that joy from oh so long ago, taste it, revel in it, and keep it close – because unlike that diamond, joy is free.

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