Christmas

The Feeling That Stayed

A memory from when I still believed in magic — and the wish that you might feel it too.

It’s not that I’m thinking about Christmas today for the first time.

The truth is, I think about it every year — ever since you were born.

Maybe because, each time, I try to hold on to a little of what I once felt as a child —

and also because, for a long time, I tried to deny the fact that I once shared this date

with someone who saw Christmas very differently from how I did.

For me, Christmas has always been more than lights or presents.

It was a pause.

A breath of warmth in the middle of time.

A feeling that filled the air.

Today, I look around and see how much it has changed, how commercial, how fast, how empty it feels.

Everything is about selling and consuming,

consuming, consuming, consuming.

And that makes me sad.

Part of that might come with age,

a certain maturity that changes how we see the world,

but I think it’s also because times have changed.

We live in the age of information,

and with it came the age of skepticism.

You’re growing up in a world where answers are everywhere.

Where everything can be searched, explained, verified.

And sometimes I worry that, in all that knowing,

believing becomes harder.

You have more access to information than I ever did —

but maybe less space for imagination, magic, and mystery.

That’s why I’ve always felt it was my responsibility, as your father,

to try to balance that.

To show you that magic doesn’t have to disappear —

it just needs to be reinvented.

When I was your age, we lived in South Africa.

Of the few memories I still carry from those first seven years,

Christmas is the brightest one.

That’s where I first met Father Christmas —

not as a story, but as a feeling.

I remember how seriously everyone took it.

Sometimes he came during the night while everyone was asleep,

and in the morning, the once-empty tree was suddenly full of presents and color.

Other times, during dinner, my father would say we had to go outside —

“Let’s hunt for Christmas,” he’d say,

to see if we could catch a glimpse

of Father Christmas flying across the sky in his sleigh pulled by reindeer.

When we came back inside,

the same quiet tree that had stood there before dinner

was now glowing —

full of light, gifts, and decorations.

Those little rituals were pure magic.

And as cheesy as it may sound,

they were made of love and emotion.

Father Christmas wasn’t a man —

he was a feeling.

Now I understand that what my parents gave me

was far more than gifts.

They gave me a memory of pure wonder.

But the truth is, I wasn’t able to give you the same.

With time — and the separation — that opportunity slipped away.

The logistics of the 24th with your mother and the 25th with me

took away any chance to keep traditions alive.

Because Christmas isn’t just a day,

it’s a buildup of small, shared moments,

little rituals that make the night feel alive.

I’m writing you this letter so that one day,

when you’re old enough to understand,

you’ll see that these traditions weren’t invented to lie to children.

They were created to teach us

that life can still hold magic.

That imagination is just as important as knowledge.

And that creativity,

that ability to dream,

is a muscle,

and like any muscle, it needs to be exercised.

Maybe I didn’t manage to give you the same Christmas I had.

Maybe the magic didn’t arrive in the same way,

or at the same time.

But I don’t believe it’s gone.

I believe it’s waiting,

in the way you’ll one day create your own rituals,

in the traditions you’ll invent without even noticing,

in the moments when you choose presence over noise,

imagination over certainty.

If this letter does anything,

I hope it reminds you that magic is not something you’re given —

it’s something you allow.

Something you protect.

Something you pass on.

And if one day, years from now,

you find yourselves creating that feeling for someone else,

then this letter will have done its job.

Because, in the end,

Christmas was never about believing in the impossible.

It was about learning how to believe —

in love, in wonder,

and in the quiet beauty of being together.

Marry Christmas

Dad