Time bent its rules inside the little white Catholic church perched on the New Jersey coastline at Christmas. The seaside spiritual sanctuary of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church transformed into an evergreen temple of light—where the minutes rebelled against the holiday celebrations bursting beyond the doors.
The magical church of my childhood suddenly came alive during the holy celebration led by Father Carey, a somewhat intimidating Irishman from whom I learned the mystery of faith. The enchanted Yuletide oasis boasted vaulted cathedral ceilings draped in garland and lights, the remaining space and altar lush with evergreen trees and poinsettias.
It was an overwhelmingly supernatural experience to walk into such a beautiful, sacred space decorated to the high heavens to welcome in the light.
Each word dragged on hours, which crept into days and weeks before time realigned to release us of one of the final commitments of the year and a victorious celebration prominently featuring a feast and presents.
St. Joseph’s Church at Christmastime. Source.
Christmas Eve Mass
Evening mass began before dinner. I have to hand it to Father Carey; managing Christmas Eve mass has to be intimidating when your audience consists of hyper, hungry children and their tired, hungry parents.
Father Carey was light on his feet during Christmas mass, breaking out his bold laugh while sailing through the joyous energy of the mostly-attentive congregation.
I did my best to be on my holiest, best behavior in church because I knew it would help my power rankings with Jesus and Santa. I needed to avoid sinning and earn those amazing gifts while praying extra hard for a six-disc radio-stereo combo and a Titanic poster featuring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet at the bow of the Titanic.
Countdown to Communion
Mass mercifully ended after 60 tediously slow minutes of Christmas holiness, complete with the readings of Matthew 2:1-12, every verse of O Holy Night, and a gleeful chorus of exchanges sharing Peace Be With Youse and Merry Christmases. The church stairs would soon become flooded with parents politely chatting as they fought for their lives while attempting to wrangle their children’s holiday impatience, swelling to a disorderly crescendo.
Our family walked down the church's stairs and up those belonging to the Cozy Blue Home, where the real fun began. My boisterous and lively family would gather with drinks, music, food, singing, and fun, reminiscent of our Celtic ancestors and their Yuletide feasts.
Christmas Eve was thrilling for me— and the excitement didn’t even end at bedtime. Christmas Eve gave way to Christmas Day, filled with more family and the promise of Santa’s bounty.
Recently, my husband and I were reminiscing about our favorite holiday memories. The conversation turned to the age when we stopped believing in Santa. I was hesitant to answer. I was a middle schooler, which is embarrassing for all intents and purposes. Years prior, I had discovered “Santa presents” in a closet but chose to ignore them in favor of the magic. Logically, I knew it was my parents, but I didn’t want to stop believing.
Time is a gift. Offering perspective on the unexplained and introspective work gives way to clarity, a stark contrast to wishing for immediate change, a fruitless endeavor.
Magic doesn’t just happen to you. You don’t ask the universe for what you need. You conspire with it.
Reflecting on yourself in time is an encouraging reminder that life isn’t happening to you but in your favor. My family’s willingness to share their abundance of love divinely provided for me. It's a building block of magic in its own right. The magic of that specific moment wasn’t lost, as I believed it had been lost for many years.
I just forgot how it got there in the first place—love of others, love, and self-worth. I believed I deserved that, something I lost over time, losing grip on what was good enough to deserve. But I deserve it all, and there’s no greater gift than forgiving my reflection. Love isn’t transactional. All's not lost.
Perspective and reality can bring the spark of light back. A familiar flame, the internal warmth returning after a long winter.
And look, that season of internal work is excellent, and I highly suggest that you feel deeply and give yourself more of what you desire and deserve—but not for nothing. Santa is cool as hell. He’s a mystical being in his own right, flying great distances and communicating with animals and magical creatures in the name of the joy of others. Who wouldn’t want to hope the myth is true?
Releasing the belief in Santa’s magic made space for the untapped mystical parts of me.
Follow the Stars
As I switched gears from my Catholic faith to something less institutionally sound, my heart broke, considering whether my new practice had room for Christmas. Was it acceptable to practice my magic and celebrate Christmas? was one of many questions among those sleepless nights.
While I understood the Catholic Institution was up to no good for its entire life, I couldn’t quite conceptualize how it impacted my life post-Catholicism. As it happens, the Pagan Wheel of the Year was adopted as a version of the Catholic calendar. Joyful and triumphant, indeed.
As my practice matured, I connected the study of the tarot, astrology, numerology, religious texts, ancestral practices, and my natural connection to spirits to build a complete picture of my faith, an unending requirement of this calling.
As my education progresses, I’ve become comfortable in the complex shades of my spirituality. I feel emboldened to blend faith techniques for a more beautiful landscape, fearlessly painting with the colors of my spiritual confidence, even though the picture is incomplete.
Do You See What I See?
I’ve been reflecting on whether the collective is willing to blend the magickal and faithful teachings, an invitation to join me in spiritual curiosity.
Religious texts transformed in front of me. The words of scripture I ruefully studied in my youth suddenly glowed in a different light through the lens of my calling.
Acknowledging and accepting my spiritual gifts illuminated hopeless dark places within me that I once deemed unworthy of fixing, now easier to repair in a better light.
I indulged my divine spiritual gifts, dreaming of human things and basking in the awe of our ability to reach beyond earthly circumstances for more. I don’t dream of it any longer. I seek it, looking beyond my earthly view.
Magical practitioners and the stars have been in companionship forever. Our need to discover and understand their meaning is foundational, prominently featured in the Catholicism that informed my magickal practice.
In Matthew 2:1-12, the stars are the main divining tool navigationally and spiritually for the Three Wise Men, or Magi, affirming the prophecy:
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.
8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
Imagine my shock reading Magi. Magical people. It’s not unlikely these Three Kings were Babylonian astrologers who skillfully and intuitively followed the guidance of the stars to navigate and anoint the newly birthed Son of God. No big deal.
The Magi present three earthly gifts with more than earthly meanings. Gold for earthly wealth; frankincense for anointed and accepted holiness; and myrrh, a characterization of death. Mind, body, spirit. Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Our planets, moon, and stars, divine tools of today, are the same Source offered to the Diviners of yore.
My Celtic Pagan and Catholic ancestors' practices are alive in my beliefs and modern celebration of the Yuletide season.
It’s a Christmas miracle. I really can have it all.
Rocking Around the Christmas Tree
Ten blocks north of St. Joe’s, my family has transformed into the (consistently) loud celebratory crew. The decibel levels at Caulfield gatherings have become concerning enough for Apple Watches to warn us of our imminent hearing loss. Some things never change.
With our hunger finally satiated, it was time to decorate the tree with my cousins, the final ritual before the glorious wrapping paper ticker tape parade, each kid exuberantly claiming the first wave of a generous holiday bounty from Gram and Poppy, aunts, uncles, and close family friends.
I love the nostalgic collection of ornaments still hanging on my grandparents' tree, and I love seeing those now-adult cousins bringing their children to help decorate on Christmas Eve. The ornaments of our parents' childhood are still used to decorate the same tree, winning the battles of time and moves, jubilantly displayed another year.
The holiday is all-encompassing. I told you, all my favorite people were there, including my mom’s parents, who would join the loud, happy Caulfield crew the night before hosting us at their house on Christmas Day.
Before we knew it, it was time to sleep and welcome the sugar plums, which would surely dance in our partially slumbering heads as we impatiently waited for Santa. All was right in the world.
Santasquatch
He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so should I be worried for real? What’s this guy’s deal?
Santa was/is a thrilling enigma. How did that dude know everything?! He even nailed the exact thing I asked for. I knew I had to behave as a Catholic and recipient of the gifts bestowed by Santa, crafted by his army of tiny toymakers.
My sleepless nights included theorizing about the magical skills embodied by Santa. Is he like Jesus or more like our priest? Or he was more like Glinda the Good Witch. Was a bubble like a sleigh? I had to know that if I confessed my sins to my priest, did that also apply to Santa’s Nice list? There were logistics I simply needed answers to.
Modern Santa is an amalgamation of Coca-Cola advertising and layers of folklore. In this crossover episode, we’re reminded a component of Santa Claus is partially attributed to the Catholic Saint Nicholas.
Pre-sainthood, Nicholas was a devout Catholic trust fund kid who tragically lost his parents to a fatal illness during a pandemic. He gave away his inherited wealth and possessions to those in need in pursuit of community and goodness. Artwork commissioned to celebrate his image gives us clues about the graduation to universal folklore:
On December 6, 1810, John Pintard commissioned artist Alexander Anderson to create the first American image of Nicholas. He was depicted in a gift-giving role with children's treats in stockings hung on the fireplace. The accompanying poem ends, "Saint Nicholas, my dear good friend! To serve you ever was my end, If you will, now, me something give, I'll serve you ever while I live." Source.
Catholics celebrate Saint Nick’s feast on December 6. He boasts hundreds of churches with his namesake worldwide, celebrating his giving nature.
Modern-Day Claus reminds me of something like the Powerpuff Girls, with a sprinkle of Father Christmas, a scrunch of the Dutch Sinterklaas, and a generous peppering of several other traditions that all come together as modern Christmas and Santa Claus. You get the point.
You’re not immune from folklore. No one is.
The mystery man didn’t need a physical embodiment to make the gifts real. The gifts under the tree already exist in our world, and logic defies his licensing prowess with Mattel, no matter how you package it.
For me, it was the impossibility of how we received our gifts. The visceral magic of Christmas came from how deeply we felt in our environment, fueled by the materialization of gifts from the people we cherish the most. It’s overwhelming to quantify the emotional experience of being surrounded by the people you love who are only there to celebrate.
The magic doesn’t have to cease to exist because we have a logical answer to how the myth works. Christmas can be as magical as you make it. The love you choose and the joy you choose are magic.
Merry Christmas to All and to All a Goodnight
Christmas morning daylight breaks early as a kid, the final stretch of the gift marathon.
Another surge of chaos would erupt in freshly ripped seasonal paper, stocking discoveries, and finding a moment to get some of Mom's Christmas French toast. The subsequent cleanup prompted the problematic task of which gift to bring, admire, and love on the way to the Christmas finale.
The Wheelers Christmas was the conclusion to a parade of gifts, indulgence, and a winding down of energy in the quiet comfort of Granny and Pop-pop’s loving home. Another holiday oasis filled our cups generously, motivated by love.
In a flash, the whole world is different. You feel invincible, especially as a kid strutting into the new year like a new you. For sure, gifts are great, but so is tapping into that happy energy that brings me back. I’ve learned to appreciate the experience of genuine gratitude, thankful that the people around me love me enough to consider giving me anything— an important ingredient to conjure that old familiar magic beckoning you to conjure it once more.
Brighter than the Star of Bethlehem
You don’t need permission to be curious and faithful. What would this season have looked like had the Magi not led the way to the divined prophet? The mystery of faith and affirmation of love brings us closer to our light.
The Divine, our ancestors, and loved ones challenge you to remember to create light in places where the dark dwells. Believing is seeing. You are magic. You are your greatest creator.
Don’t let the possibilities of the dark scare you into dimming your light. It's always darkest before dawn and the solstice until the sun rises once more and the light returns. I am confident the sun will shine again with this little light of mine.
Commentaires