The other afternoon I was standing in the sporting goods department of a department store in Mansfield. A young lad came up to me and said, “My Mom, over there says you’re an outdoor writer. She said for me to ask you whether you believe in Santa and that you’d tell me the truth about whether there is or not?” I told him to watch the paper, that my answer may soon appear in there and that he should, in the meantime, listen to what his heart “tells” him. That he should believe only if he feels that spirit so magical deep down in his young, beautiful heart. Here then, my great little friend is your answer. I hope other children will read this and share the magic that is, Christmas, that is Santa Claus:
“An Old Believer”
I sat on a dark, woodland hilltop
Just the other night.
And Watched the stars go tumbling,
Until they were out of sight.
I just went out there to wonder,
To think of a belief nearly lost.
Until my beard, mustache and eyelashes
Turned sterile white with the new morning’s frost.
“There has to be!” I thought aloud.
“There just has to be, because,
Christmas time would lack the glow, the magic,
Without old Santa Claus!”
Now just because I’m old and gray,
Means not, I can’t believe,
In that dear Saint Nick, I’ll always love,
Until this great Earth I have to leave…
But I’ll be happy,
Though old, yes gray,
And after I’m gone I’ll listen well,
To what the non-believers have to say.
“Why that old man, he was crazy!
Believed in, you know, old Kris Kringle
And worshipped the holiday so much,
His own eyes forever twinkled!”
Oh they’ll wonder I’d bet,
Just where I’ve gone, my body and my soul?
Well just maybe I’ve gone to Heaven
Or just straight to the far, North Pole?
And you know, I just pray I’m able,
Even though gone from this fine earth,
To somehow convince folks there’s a Santa,
And of an even holier birth…
Merry Christmas. May the love of this blessed holiday fill the heart s of everyone in the world.