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“To a carpenter and a teenage girl”
Ramblings on Santa, baby Jesus, and belief in something greater than ourselves
Every year, my family makes the 30-minute drive out to County Line Rd in Madison, AL for Christmas movies at my aunt’s house. It’s been a tradition for the past four years, and while the line up of movies has changed over time, the transition has stayed strong.
Two classics we tend to end up watching are Sleepless and Seattle and Arthur Christmas. While Sleepless and Seattle is arguably not a Christmas movie, Arthur Christmas is the reason I kept believing in Santa Claus at nine-years-old.
When I was starting to have my doubts back in 2011, we went and saw the film, and my belief was re-instated. The S-1 Santa spaceship and the elf army were enough to renew my belief in Santa for the rest of the year.
Thirteen years later, as a grown woman, I have some thoughts about this movie and the hope and faith it gave me.
Arthur Christmas is a great film — not just because it’s funny for kids and adults, but because of its great moral lessons, family drama, and somewhat logical reasons for believing in Santa. The movie spelled out a way for Santa to be real, which wasn’t only believable but felt right.
Looking back at the renewed belief in Santa that the movie brought for me, I can’t help but think about how our belief in Christ as the Savior is similar.
On this Christmas day, I can confidently say that I believe with all of my heart that there is a God “beyond the azure blue”. I believe, too, that He sent his Son who we call Jesus to live and die to buy my pardon from sin and give me eternal life.
There are a lot of practical reasons I believe that, and some philosophical arguments I carry around in my back pocket for that belief. But at the end of the day, a large reason I believe in that truth and live my life out of it is because of something I feel in my heart.
There’s something about a God who wants to be with us that makes sense. There’s this life and love force that appears to be running the world, and it tracks in my brain that it would be from this loving and kind creator God.
