Will the real Santa Claus please stand up? OK, here I am! Yep, I’m Santa! I’ve been Santa Claus since I started looking like him. An old cliché “You believe in Santa Claus, you are Santa Claus and then you look like Santa Claus” is true. And I love it. Every year the gigs become more numerous.  It doesn’t take very long. It takes more time to dress and undress in my homemade Santa suit then to do the Santa gigs.  All I have to do is show up – and sometimes because of the way I look, I don’t have to have a suit on.  Children often, while my beard is long, simply come over and sit on my lap and begin telling me what they want for Christmas.  But it’s natural and part of the journey.

The same is true of our grief. Our remembering and celebrating are both a part of the season and the journey. They simply “come” because of who we are and what we look like. I look like my father. As we come together during Christmas family remind me, and I remind them of my father – long now in the Kingdom of God, but still very missed. It’s simply part of the journey and like being Santa Claus, has simply become part of the new identity. I have learned to accept and even embrace my new identity in my grief and as Santa Claus.

You better watch out, you better not cry – ‘Cause Santa Claus is coming to town –

Merry Christmas,