He so wants to believe.

He wants the magic to be real.

Don’t we all, really?

My eight-year-old has been practicing his stealth ninja walk for weeks now, thinking that he’ll trip a certain someone up when presents are being laid under the tree on December 24. He’s just not sure which certain someone he’ll find—Santa or someone more familiar.

He’s gotten quite good at stealth tactics, actually. He’s been able to surprise me several times, appearing behind me without a sound.

But the old guy in the red suit is quite savvy. That’s what I tell my little inquisitive warrior.

This year, more so than any other, it is so important that his doubt be assuaged. This year has been a year full of too many adult cares being thrown at my little boy—death, divorce, and the upheaval that comes with goodbyes of that nature. I want him to see magic does exist in this world—be it in the form of a jolly old man who comes down the chimney or just unexpected, improbable good coming his way. He’s had too much of the other—unanticipated ick.

But to show him the magic, I have to feel it myself. I’ve been finding that hard lately.

And then, it appeared, literally, on my doorstep. Two friends stopped by unexpectedly with a gift basket of goodies, telling me they were kidnapping me in my own house to share wine, stories and laughs. Another friend stopped by with a dinner that I cannot wait to eat and a small token to remind me of the love the surrounds me.

And so I remember: magic comes to those who believe and usually at the moment we need it most.

I hope you have your own Santas. And if you don’t, I hope you become someone else’s. I’m thinking that’s the cure I was forgetting.

Now I plan to go make a little magic for a certain small being.

But before I go, all you children of the 1970s will remember this one, from the Kung Fu series:

Master Po: Close your eyes. What do you hear?

Young Caine: I hear the water, I hear the birds.

Po: Do you hear your own heartbeat?

Caine: No.

Po: Do you hear the grasshopper which is at your feet?

Caine: Old man, how is it that you hear these things?

Po: Young man, how is it that you do not?

Now THAT is magic, friends. That is magic. Stealth’s got nothing on me:-).