The Christmas Season and The Magic Window

Christmas is my favorite holiday season, but every year, it seems hard to recapture that magic feeling I had as a child.  I try to decorate more, listen to more Christmas music, and soak up the seasonal changes and decor around town.  But that magic feeling seems so hard to recapture.

Last year I realized it isn't the Christmas season that changes and seemingly makes it hard to grasp that magic feeling, but us.  I came across something written by a guy called "Papa Ted" that he called "The Magic Window."

There is but a very brief window in early childhood for us all, a period of time that lasts from birth until we are cast from the nest and into school. A time when all about the world is new and good. A time when we are open. A time when we take things in so deeply that they will form us ever after. So we imprint upon the Christmas of that time, and what that was is what it will be for us always. That is what collecting is about. The power that an object unseen in decades can have to transport us in mind and spirit back to a specific period or moment of our lives - to unlock long-closed doors in the mansion of our memory - is the true value that it has. We can hold such an object in our hands and know those times were real and welcome back whole parts of who we were into who we are - and let the inner child in each of us out once again to play - to live as part of us and and help us see again through our own "Magic Window." -T.H. Althof

You can see a longer, more descriptive version on this page here (You have to scroll to the bottom of the page to get the Magic Window part, but the other stuff is interesting too if you have time to read it).

What he said about "The Magic Window" really made sense to me.  Ultimately, the modern Christmas season hasn't really changed all that much over time, but the Christmases of our childhood that our parents made for us are the Christmases that are really imprinted into our minds.  I don't have any children of my own yet, so I can't relive my childhood Christmases through children vicariously like some of my friends already do.  But I still hold out hope to recapture that magic feeling of a childhood Christmas every year!

See my past Christmas posts below.

The Christmas Story

The Star of Bethlehem

The Christmas Truce

Music of the Christmas Season