from black walnut (who is having problems posting to Mudcat):

You're quite right, Marion, to bring St. Nicholas into the discussion. He was certainly important in our family talks about Santa. (We didn't lecture or throw cold water on the subject, by the way....it was more that we tried to be open and honest when they came to us with their questions....but if they wanted to put out the milk and cookies, we helped them write the note to go with it). There IS a magic about Christmas, though, that can make me absolutely believe the most wonderful and hopeful of things. Every year that magic appears, despite the horrid muzak in the stores, and the ads which imply that a low~cost gifts means low~level love, and that shallow way people have of equating "pretty" harp music only with this season of the year, and/or with angels (I play harp, if you didn't know). It's not just the magic of friends and families getting together. It's got something to do with the ritual of the advent wreath, the glow of candlelight, the smell of evergreen in the house, the liturgy of the midnight eucharist, exchanging a gift for good wishes from my dearest Jewish friend, and those fabulous renditions of the old old carols every year down at the Flying Cloud Folk Club at the Tranzac..... ~black walnut (whose hair is made of mistletoe, really!)