I’m catching the Christmas spirit. I don’t know what it is about this season that gets to me, but it does -- Christmas is strangely ‘magical’ for me -- has been for as far back as I can remember.

My first really vivid recollection of Christmas was, ironically, the first Christmas without my dad. He was serving in the USAF and was stationed in Korea for 2 years. I was 4 and we were living in Orlando, Florida at the time and my favorite aunt and uncle brought my grandmother and spent the holidays with us. On that Christmas eve, I was missing my dad being there so much and was feeling desperately lonely for him. The rest of the family was visiting around the tree in the living room and playing Christmas music. I didn’t FEEL like feeling good with everyone else, so I went out on the front porch where my new, early Christmas present awaited me -- a new, big hobby horse mounted on springs -- and proceeded to ride out my frustrations on my new pony (even then, ‘horseback riding’ was my method of choice for relieving tension and ‘centering’ myself emotionally). As I rode my pony with a vengeance, tears flowed, and I remember praying and asking God to tell my dad how much I missed him and wanted him to be there with us. I wanted a miracle to happen -- I wanted my dad.

As me and my pony began to tire, I started noticing all the pretty Christmas lights all over the neighborhood, and how really pretty they were. The night sky was clear and warm, stars were twinkling and the moon was bright. And as I began to ride my pony to the Christmas tunes playing on the record player in the house (that was a new Christmas present to my mom from my aunt and uncle), I began to listen to the words and sing along.

As me and my pony rode on, I began to sense that somehow, though not in the way I would’ve preferred, my dad really WAS there with me, somehow. And strangely, I began to feel very warm and happy and secure. The evening began to take on a sort of ‘magical’ feel to it and I felt certain that miracles were real, even though the miracle I’d prayed for (my dad’s return for Christmas) had not been granted me.

I’m not sure how long I rode my new pony through the night, but I remember that when I came in, I felt my soul was surrounded by something great and warm and perfect. While I’d been out, my uncle had been fiddling with our reel tape player and preparing, unbeknownst to me, a tape my dad had sent to him -- dad had sent it to my uncle and told him not to tell any of us about it until Christmas eve, when he was to play it for us. It was my dad’s Christmas message for me and my mom.

The peculiar comfort and inexplicable peace that God had engulfed me with in answer to my prayer, coupled with the sound of my dad’s voice on the tape, seeing his face in the pictures he’d sent, hearing the stories he had to tell of this strange land across the ocean -- it all really did seem quite ‘magical’ to me that Christmas eve. I remember crying myself to sleep that night, though tears that had begun in despair had become tears of joy, for it was as though dad really WAS there with us. Perhaps it was not only the very real sense of the ‘presence’ of my beloved dad that had made this night magical, but also that which proved to be my first memorable, PERSONAL encounter with this concept called "God."

My next most memorable Christmas was the NEXT Christmas I spent without my dad -- the first Christmas following his death. But that story is for a later time. Tonight, I ride my magical hobby horse into the night...