I’m a sucker for a certain magical mood this time of year. Maybe it’s the byproduct of Christmases as an only child and being showered, absolutely unequivocably showered, with gifts from a set of grandparents and mom and dad that started it. (For a visual, any of the two-ish minute clips attached in the below captions will prove the point.) Whether I believed in a man wearing a red suit breaking into my home and leaving all that booty didn’t matter. I mean, I believed that happened for a while until a certain age, then I got the news and I didn’t think that happened anymore but I don’t feel there was a scar left where that ho-ho-ho man had been. (Sidenote: This David Sedaris moment, him reading about the Dutch version of Santa, is effin’ priceless and a good smile.) Maybe it was the intrinsic belief that stuff just appeared. That was the magical bit. As a young’un I sat on plenty of santa laps and murmured my wish list, yet that wasn’t a memory I remember as being fun. I could say it was stressful but I’d just be making that up. It was probably just a thing I got excited about doing because that’s what you did at Christmas, went to see Santa so you’d get what you wanted since he was apparently in charge of all that. For sure I think the ability to suspend reality when you’re young is powerful because there may be all sorts of holes in the story around Santa, Jesus, the Easter Bunny, god, Yeti, unicorns (wait, not unicorns, those are real) but they exist apparently because they serve a purpose in the moment. Coming face to face with a rendition of that story thought felt jarring on a few levels. Maybe because of previously set expectations: the thing doesn’t look like you thought it would or now that you’re here and the moment is happening, it will pass, and then what’re you left with? A yearning for it to happen again or a whew, glad that’s over moment (or a combo plate).

I saw some of those complicated moments straight up the other night when I went to see the production of The Nutcracker that Dennis has been touring with. Before the show there was a photo area set up where the kids could get a photo taken with one of the ballerinas. The line was fairly long to stand with this sparkly magical creature and the fidgety jumpy me-next-ness was palpable until the moment the wee one needed to step onto the set, then, almost to a one, there would be a pause, a full stop, a kind of “ur, not sure about this” and they would hang back for a second, then give in, step up, get twirled by the dancer, then run away. There was one exception, as seen in the last photo above, where the young one refused to take the ballerina’s hand, which seemed to make the dancer quite sad. I found myself rooting for this young one decided to take the picture on her terms. No, I’m not gonna be twirled, I’m gonna stand over here where I feel safe. Again, making all that up around what was happening, but that’s how I saw it!

She seemed to be figuring out how to have her joy on her own terms. I was a big fan of that. I’m not suggesting there is really any control to be had over anything really, but this young one’s stance reminded me that there is maybe a way to have your joy, stay there for a minute, then exit stage left when you want. Did I know that when I was young, then lose it over time?

Given that currently the idea of diving into a big pool of joy and splashing fully in it for an extended amount of time, say longer than a few minutes, scares the beejesus out of me, I wonder when or why that happened. I cling to an emotional floatie that keeps me above the water as a nod to safety. Don’t want to drown even though I’m a fine swimmer. The element of whether the water will get drained and I’ll be exposed. Logically I can say So what? I can handle exposure. Who cares, let me have this moment of buoyancy for as long as I want it. Yes, logically I get that I’ll be able to deal with whatever happens. Emotionally not so much. So ingrained is the sense that if I give into joy for any length of time I’ll either be exposed as a fool for believing the water was great while everyone else knew it was toxic or that eventually, I’ll need to get out because now I’m just showing off by doing the backstroke while singing. And over time, over life experiences, this sand of doubt began to rub and chafe until I believed that no, best not to give in for too long, be on guard, be smart, and not get fooled. I know pearls grow in oysters from grains of sand. Sure. Just like I know rainbows are some combination of sunlight and atmosphere. Science, yet emotionally that feels about as esoteric as the magic of why a certain time of year can flood the system with joy. How that sense of lightness can happen at other times as well without having to be some breathless experiment in caution.

Looking at the home movie clips, I am charmed by the unabashed joy in all the things that were around me. Mostly presents. And dolls. So. Many. Dolls. All different sizes. Maybe some stand-ins for sisters. A few were actually tall enough.

I also recognized some furniture that my dad still owns: a side table still there to hold his martini, a rug currently rolled up in his closet. It was comforting to see those touchstones and also remember pieces like the needlepoint rocking chair sitting near the fireplace that was perfectly sized for me to climb into and make move. The house itself, which we drove by last year and, although it’s been painted and the trees grown over the last four decades, still spoke of happy holiday moments. The living room fireplace I lay in front of and devoured Little Women on my twelfth Christmas while falling firmly in love with long-form stories. The den where my Matchbox car track snaked around my eighth yuletide and the courtyard on my tenth Christmas where I learned to ride my bike around and around in circles, which is probably why I still tilt to the side on my current bike. All these clips brought home the cocoon of those times. Far from making me sad, watching these moments made me remember. I seemed like I enjoyed handing out the gifts. I clearly loved opening them.

I was reminded of my mom’s gamine haircut and shy-smile beauty. My dad’s handsomeness. My grandfather’s (dad’s dad) hair, how he had a lot of it even in his seventies, which no doubt made his son annoyed as he was losing his. That my grandmother (dad’s mom) had the best pair of cat-eye glasses in a non-ironic fashion. The slight startle of seeing my grandmother (mom’s mom), who was also very beautiful, showing up in a limited amount of these home movie clips. At the time I didn’t understand the complicated nature of her and my mom’s relationship and why she wasn’t around that much.

In each clip, I’m fully stepping into the joy. They’re short snatches of moments but if memory serves (so unreliable), the sense I have now around this season is very much formed by the goodness of what was back then. Very simple. People I loved were happy for me. Me happy to be with them. No false bottom was dropping out, and even when it did, when after the divorce things changed, my mom and dad still did the togetherness dance during the Santa holiday for my benefit. Until I was a teenager, at which point I split my time between them and was miserable. But I wasn’t miserable about the holiday per se, I was miserable because I was a teenager and that was my job. That period of time when misery is just a state of mind alongside extreme happiness, lust, agony, confusion, certitude. Extreme highs and lows—that things were SO GOOD, then they were SO BAD—maybe that filter remains in place. Like when you step into the frame and the glittering ballerina moment awaits, then you notice she’s maybe frowning or a safety pin is holding her tutu in place but you’re still happy to be there, then it’s over and you step out of the shot and it’s back to a life that may not be wearing a tiara. There’s still a snapshot memory or a quick home movie that flashes a reminder. And rather than it being like staring into the sun and going blind, the thing can be held and seen for what it is: some magic, a thing that can be real even if it’s not.

Here’s to all of us jumping in that joy pool to spend the days ahead in whatever ways make us happiest!

(One last thing, because I know books transport, a place I donated to this year and now monthly: Freedom Reads.)