Shushing out the Doubters
Coulter said to me, “Mom, some of my friends say that their parents move the elf; that he can’t really fly.”
“Oh?” I replied. “Do you think maybe that’s because they don’t believe? And maybe since they don’t believe, there’s no magic? My guess is that their parents have to move him. You know, because there’s no magic.”
The magic happens when we believe.
And he wants to believe, but there are the friends and there are the questions. and there are the voices of unbelievers.
“OH!” I want to cry out. Shut them out! Tune them out! Not all voices are ones we must listen to and I think, oh how easy the faith of a child; how easy to believe. It’s in the growing and learning and reasoning and doubting that we lose the magic.
You must enter the Kingdom of God as little children.
And the magic happens when we believe.
So we read Elf on the Shelf as we do each Thanksgiving night and the magic was “activated” and the next morning Jolly Sparkle found his way to Arkansas.
One night. Two nights and then, as Coulter would say, “Epic FAIL!”
I forgot to move him.
I love this book. I love the story behind the book. I love our Elf. But, Oh. My. Gosh….the stress of remembering.
Remembering the magic.
My mom wakes in the middle of the night and she remembers. She’s not sure what to do. We are leaving the next morning and she’s uncertain of Jolly’s travel plans. She puts him in a bag and then writes herself a note to remember.
The children wake and there is no Jolly Sparkle.
My mom calls me in; she gives me the bag and I make a plan. Jolly Sparkle obviously wants to go on a road trip.
‘Cause as you know, we rock at road trips.
We have built-in DVD holders; not exactly sure why given that there are no DVD players, but whatever, they make for nice little storage compartments. I pop one down and Jolly flies in.
The children give up looking. He must already be on his way to Nebraska, we conclude.
It took so long to load up all the last-minute items that honestly I had forgotten about Jolly when we went to pile in. Coulter screamed, “Mom! There’s Jolly Sparkle!!!”
And then it happened.
The magic.
“Mom! Look! You were surprised, so it couldn’t have been you. You didn’t move him!! It IS magical!
And just like that, we believed again.
The faith of a child.
And that rare moment when you know, fully and completely, that you just got something right.
And while some choose not to celebrate Christmas with Santa and elves and North Poles, I will fight for Santa. I will fight for the magic; I will fight for the spirit of believing and I will fight to shush out the doubters.
Because do you what’s even more unbelievable than flying elves and a Big Dude who delivers presents?
A baby, born of a virgin, sent to deliver us.
And He is Someone we can believe in.
Christmas is not about Jolly Sparkle or Santa or Flying Reindeer.
It’s about shushing out the doubters and believing in a miracle.
Because it’s in the believing that magic happens.
Raising Magnolias 