What The Eyes Fail To See

  Dynamic sets of forever changing inconsistencies, similar to the wind and frosty rains. That's what stories are. That's what belief is. 

  It is who I am.

  Do you remember all of the stories you've been told throughout your lifetime? I don't mean the everyday stories you'd find on the news. Look deeper inside of that decrepit shed you locked ages ago. Search inside that dust covered chest that you shut because of false expectations. Break the lock, open the door; the stories of youth.

  Once upon a time, you believed in a jolly fat man named Santa Clause. When you were young, you really did believe that a rabbit hid eggs on Easter, and that a fairy traded treasures for your teeth. A man lived on the moon, and a boy made of sand sent dreams through your window. You had friends that walked unseen, and heroes that were born from nothing more than a little imagination.

  But now they're gone. All of that faith you had in the presents that magically appear beneath decorated trees vanished. Like the stars in the rays of a coming dawn, your belief that fairies were real dissipated. And why do you think that is?

  Because seeing has somehow become synonymous with believing.

  Then why, I ask, did you stop believing? You don't see emotion, but you feel it. You don't see the force of change but you sense it all around you. You don't see Saint Nicholas but you feel the joy of Christmas. These feelings are the embodiment of all our childhood heros.

  Don't you see? Not with your eyes! Your heart sees what the eyes cannot; seeing is believing.

  So believe! See through the eyes of joy, the eyes of hope and wonder! Rethink the way you see Saint Nick, not as a man, but as a personification of family love. The bunny as a symbol of hope, the fairy as a collector of memories.

They are real, you see. Not as people are, maybe, but as people perceive them to be.

So remember when the swirls of ice curl up on your windowsill, and the icicles reach for the reversed sky, that there is more there than what the eye can see.

For I'll be there, watching over your hearth. I'll be there with my long white beard and my fresh youthful face; my blue pointed shoes, and my frosty white cape. I'll carry a shepherds cane, bringing fun, but also mischief. I'll bring a blanket of snow and a sky full of purple clouds stretching across the world like gloved hands around a snowball.

  And when you're digging igloos out of the mounds of soft, frozen rain and making snowmen out of sticky white frost, remember that Jack, will be there too.

  And whether or not you see me depends on if you believe