The Big Reveal - A Story of Christmas Magic Lost and Found

Has your family adopted an Elf on the Shelf?  We did.  His name was Charles George.  He was a good elf, who monitored the children’s behavior, reported back to Santa each night, and occasionally corresponded with the children and left them small gifts, and now, he is lost – hidden so well (by me) last Christmas Eve that I cannot find him anywhere.  For more than a week, I searched for him, alternately panicking and praying to St. Anthony, all to no avail.  Now what?  I pondered my options.  I considered buying a new elf and trying to pass him off as Charles George, but this year’s elves have redesigned faces and I knew the children would not be fooled.  I considered buying the redesigned elf and concocting a story about how this newer model came to us in Charles George’s place.  Two days ago, I drove to Target and stood for a long time – indecisive – before those alien elves.  In the end, I just couldn’t bring myself to lie in the face of my questioning-but–oh-so-wanting-to-believe 9-year-old daughter.  It seemed to me an insult to her belief  - her trust – at her age it just stretched it too far.  Though still undecided, I left the elves and headed for home, hoping against hope that our housekeeper or I might miraculously find our AWOL elf.  Alas, no. 

And now the children are home from school, busily and merrily decorating the tree while I lounge in my room with a book.  In time, my daughter wanders into my calm, womblike room and begins chatting earnestly with me about Charles George’s imminent arrival.  I close my book and raise my heart, mind, and eyes to God one last time, beseeching him for a miracle, or at least some wisdom.  The answer comes like a small stone falling into the deep, quiet pool of my heart.  I look into Gloria’s eyes and say, “There’s something I have to tell you.  I am so sorry, but I have looked everywhere for Charles George and I cannot find him.”  I watch her eyes, her facial music paused in uncomprehending silence.  Several moments pass in suspended animation.

            “What do you mean?”

            “I’ve looked everywhere,” I say softly, “and I can’t find Charles George.”

            “Are you telling me he’s not real?”  I give her a pained, apologetic grimace.

            “How is he NOT REAL?! …… It’s YOU?!  YOU move him?......... I KNEW IT!”  She is crying now and my heart hurts.  “YOU lied to me!  How could you lie to me like that?!  It can’t be you!  It can’t be!  You couldn’t do all of that!  How could you do it?  When?  In the middle of the night? (I nod)  YOU leave the candy?  The notes are from YOU?”

            “Yes.”

She is crying harder now, her sweet, bewildered face a mottled fuchsia.  She is hurting and so am I.  Each question, each exclamation another hard stone falling into my heart – plop….plop…plop.  I want to cry too, but she is such an empathetic person, I know that would be unbearable for her, so I simply pray and let the prayers and the hurt flow between us like blood washing a wound.  She is angry now.  I can feel it.  It crackles in the air.

            “How could you lie to me like that?”

            “It’s OK to be mad at me, sweetheart.  I know you are angry and that’s OK……..I just hope eventually you will remember how much fun it was to believe he was real, and the only way I could give you that fun – that magic – was to lie to you and to your brother.  And now that you know, I really hope you will help me keep this secret for your brother.”

            “I know…..I know.  He is only 6.  That would be really awful if he found out.”

            “Would you like a hug?” 

            She glances upward at me, through strings of hair that have fallen into her face and stuck to her tears.  She swipes fiercely at her face with the backs of her hands and says, “Not yet.”

            “OK.”

            Silence.

            “So, YOU wrote the note from Santa last year, saying Charles George was going back to the North Pole with him?”

            Oh, no.  I forgot about that.

            “That was you too?”

            “Dear God,” I say, either aloud or in my head.  This is spinning out into dangerous territory.  We are teetering on the edge of something so precious and fragile, balancing on a filament of belief that is stretching so thin, and I know, at this moment, one way or the other, she is going to fall.  She may fall into denial, slipping sweetly and innocently back into her magical world, or she will topple into reality and there will be no going back.

            “What about Santa, Mom?” She asks.

            I pause.  I feel I have to give her one last chance to turn back, like Persephone, to stay in the darkness for one more year.  “Let’s not talk about that right now, honey.”

            “No!  No!”  Tell me!  YOU HAVE TO TELL ME!  Is Santa real?”

            “There is a spirit of Christmas, love, that is very real.  Santa is real in spirit, but is he a big elf who brings you presents in his sleigh and climbs down our chimney?”  No, he’s not real like that.”

            Sad silence.

            “And the Easter Bunny?  And, the Tooth Fairy?  And, the Leprechaun?”

            “Oh, God.  Lord have mercy,” I say, as I watch her lurch into the bright light of a hard new reality.   A slightly hysterical giggle escapes my lips before I can stifle it, and I glance over to see if I have offended her.  “This is not funny, and I am not laughing at you, my love; I am laughing because I think I may be in Hell.”

            She looks at me and she chuckles.  My magic girl.  Our eyes meet and hers are smiling.  She has given me my miracle.  That is God’s mercy.

            We laugh together now and I feel our bond.  It is stronger.  We are allies now.

            “I know it hurts, honey, and this isn’t how I wanted you to find out, but I didn’t know what else to do.”  I explain the whole story now, of my many searches and my back up plans.  I ask her for advice.  “Should we buy another elf for you and your brother?”

            “Yes!  Yes!”  She says…….”How in the world did you do it all, Mom?”

            “I am amazing.”

            She laughs.  “How do you hide the eggs?  How do you make those Leprechaun footprints?.....How?  How?  How?”

I answer her questions.  In her eyes I see admiration and gratitude.  I see acceptance. This is a miracle.  We are a team.  I tell her that and we high five.

            It is twilight.  We leave the boy at home with a baby sitter and drive to a local children’s store.  She selects the elf.  She asks if we can spend a little more time together looking around the shop.  I agree and she deftly selects a few presents for two of her cousins.  She is a gifted shopper.  I tell her so.  I tell her everything is more fun when I am with her.  She has landed squarely on her feet, my valiant girl.  Her spirit is dazzling.  We are giddy girls together, and I find myself wondering if we are riding an endorphin and oxytocin high, released in response to the shared pain of Revelation. 

            On the drive home, we plot and plan the introduction of the new elf.  We construct his back-story.  She is thrilled that she can touch tis elf, something that was forbidden with Charles George, when she believed it would “steal his magic.”  She bubbles and froths with a million questions.  She wants answers to all the mysteries.  She assures me that it really is OK that I told her.  She likes this new reality.  She admits that this year she was “a little ‘ishy’ about the whole Charles George and Santa thing.”  She seems truly grateful.  Grateful!

            When her brother is finally asleep, she creeps out of her bedroom and finds me.  We sit together in my office as I type a note explaining that Charles George is sick and Santa has sent a new elf in his place – an elf who is “sooooo excited” to be adopted by a new family and who needs a new name……  She carefully selects a location and arranges the nameless elf just so with the note propped behind him.  I hand her two candy canes from a secret stash.  She marvels once again at my subterfuge, then places the candy canes next to the elf, one cane facing the other to form a heart shape.  It is now 9:30 – long past her bedtime – but I can see she is still scintillating with the creative possibilities of this new reality.

            “You are still wide awake, aren’t you?”  I ask.  I feel compassion for her.  I revel in our bond.  I walk her to her room.  We climb up into her lofted bed and I read softly to her from “The Penderwicks.”  I read until I feel her energy soften and I know she is ready to make her way to sleep.  To sleep, perchance to dream, once more, of magic that lives on if we but close our eyes.