Though sadness during the winter holidays is a common occurrence for many of us, dare I say for most of us humans; grief at Christmas with a side of magic was an unexpected gift I’ll always cherish.

The first time it happened I was six.

I hadn’t felt well all day. It was a pain that began in my tummy and then spread as the day progressed. During the 11 p.m. candlelight service at church it spread to my chest. By the time I was getting ready for bed, I felt enveloped in a soft, persistent hurt all over.

Finding each parent to kiss goodnight, when I got to my mother I teared up and said, “Mama, I don’t feel good.”

“What’s wrong, Sally?”

“I’m sad. I hurt all over. I’m sad and I don’t know why!”

 

“You’re probably over-tired. It’s been a long day. It’s long past your bedtime and Santa can’t come till you’re asleep.”

“But I’m so sad. I’m crying for no reason!”

“I tell you what. Let’s get you in bed with your favorite doll and pray about it and I bet you’ll fall right off to sleep.”

“Ok.”

Of course, I knew exactly which doll I’d choose.

He was a soft-bodied doll I’d named “Charlie,” after Charlie Brown. My Charlie was bald too. Basically, he was a big navy-blue gingerbread cookie doll.

His body was made from a navy-blue furry material. To make him, pieces of the material were cut in the shape of a giant gingerbread man. He was about the length of a football. Filled with beads, making him perfectly huggable, he had felt fabric eyes, a felt nose, a felt mouth glued on his face, and three felt buttons glued down his chest.

Mama and I found him at an art fair while traveling. Back home, no other little girl had one like him. Charlie was unique to me, we’d bonded while traveling (which, in the world of dolls, is a very special bond indeed), and I loved him dearly.

Naturally, as I headed back to bed, it was Charlie I needed most of all.

Snuggling in bed with him, Mama sat on the edge of my bed, bowed her head, and prayed. “Dear Lord, Sally is sad tonight and doesn’t know why. Please comfort her and help her sleep. I feel certain she’ll feel better in the morning, amen.”

“Amen.”

“Now, turn over and go to sleep.”

“Night, mama. Leave my door cracked open?”

“Certainly.”

I turned over on my left side so I could see the light from the hallway.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could make out everything in my bedroom from that hallway light.

I held Charlie tight and kissed his face.

Then I held him at arm’s length to look in his felt eyes. They appeared shiny. His eyes held my gaze. Charlie’s eyes were shining…at me!

His eyes seemed to be aglow as if he were, in some doll way, truly alive.

I sat up in bed and looked around my room at the other dolls and stuffed animals there. Some sitting on shelves and a couple on the small, child’s desk Daddy had made for me when I started first grade a few months back. No matter what their eyes were made of – plastic, thread, or felt – all their eyes were shining.

And their bodies, regardless of what they were made of – felt, cotton, polyester, or plastic – they all appeared to glow.

Something magical was happening and it was happening for me.

For what happened next, I have no explanation.

I think sometimes grace opens portals in our minds, makes new pathways in our brains, instantaneously, showing up among us humans in the creative spark all the time. It often happens spontaneously in people’s minds when they either purposefully or in reaction to something stop thinking.

Hence, in the glow of that magical moment, I stopped thinking. And even though it made no sense, I felt a sense of company. I knew I wasn’t alone. And I understood why I was so sad on Christmas Eve – why I was experiencing grief at Christmas.

I was sad for all the suffering in the world – the sadness that is exacerbated during the winter holidays. This included my own suffering, yet I felt safe, even held. I realized that with the suffering that belonged to other people, and even my own, I could do nothing to help them or to help me. Feeling this sadness at the holidays and acknowledging we’re all in this together was all I could do.

It was empathy but on grand scale.

In addition, even though I couldn’t explain why or how, I knew my toys, with their shining eyes and glowing bodies, were an expression of Love. It was the Love that was holding me and the whole wide world, that was letting me know I wasn’t alone– a Love that is available to everyone, all the time.

It was Love. It was God. It was real.

As these dots connected in my mind and imagination, the sadness inside softened. I cried tears of relief and felt stronger.

I laid down to go to sleep staring at my “alive” toys. Until I drifted off to sleep, the magic didn’t fade. The next morning, it was gone. All their eyes and bodies looked normal. Except, I felt as if they and I shared a magical secret.

Needless to say, the next morning I awoke squealing, “It’s Christmas! What did Santa bring?!” and life pretty much went back to normal.

Until the next Christmas Eve and the one after that, and the one after that, when the sadness – that unique grief at Christmas – would revisit me, and my dolls and stuffed animals would come to life for one night.

At bedtime each Christmas Eve, I’d gaze around my room at the bright shining eyes of my dolls and stuffed animals, admire their glowing bodies, feel strangely comforted, and, even in the sadness, feel grateful for all of it before going to sleep.

Christmas morning, every year, found my dolls and stuffed toys back to normal.

The final Christmas Eve I had the experience, I was fourteen. By the next year, teenage interests and concerns and a move brought about a natural purge of toys. I held onto Charlie though and have him to this day.

With each passing year and more adult concerns and reasons for sadness impacting the weeks of Advent leading up to Christmas Eve, grieving at Christmas stopped being a singular event on Christmas Eve. It became something that touched most of the days of Advent.

But I knew how to handle it.

Just lean into it and feel the Love supporting all of us wherever we are and however we’re doing in all our lives.

More than being a container for my own and others’ suffering, it became an opportunity to recognize all of our humanness, especially in our grief, and yet experience the Love that holds all of us.

The present.

Naturally, all this begs the following question. Since I still have Charlie, including another doll from childhood, as well as some dolls I’ve collected over the years, what about this Christmas Eve? Might their eyes shine and their bodies glow in the light of a nearly full moon close to midnight?

There’s only one way to find out.