Tag: childhood (Page 1 of 3)

For Santa’s Magic, We Told the Truth

23 December 2025 / Editor

Nonfiction by Brian Goedde

My son Theo got to the truth about Santa by way of his envy of Peter Pan. He was four years old, and it was agonizing to him that unlike Wendy, Michael, and John, no matter how much or how hard he “believed,” he would never feel the sensation of lifting off the ground to fly.

“But why can’t I?!” he would whine, rolling on the floor.

“You can only pretend,” my wife Emily and I said. “It’s make-believe.”

One day, his Peter Pan action figure was missing. We looked and looked, in every bag and bin. We seemed more distressed to find it than he was, and he finally fessed up: he threw it out the window of our 4th floor apartment. He wanted to see Peter Pan fly. Apparently, he didn’t fly back.

Em and I had to scare him into realizing that he could have hit someone walking down the street—and maybe he had actually hit someone! “No one can fly!” we scolded. “And no one can make anyone or anything else fly!” After some tears, the matter seemed to be resolved.

Until Christmas.

Em and I were never big on the Santa myth, but we did have some fun with it. It is true that nothing sparkles quite like the eyes of a child who believes a load of new toys can, one special morning, just appear in the living room.

Naturally, Theo had some questions. We didn’t have a chimney, so how does Santa get in? “Through the window,” we supposed aloud, though we said we really didn’t know. It was magic. How does Santa fit down chimneys anyway? Magic. How do the elves make so many toys? Magic. All around the world in one night, that many toys in one sack, Rudolph’s red nose—magic, magic, magic.

And, of course: how does Santa fly? Magic.

One day, as we were making dinner, Theo asked, “So, why is Santa the only real person who can use magic and fly?”

Em and I looked at each other. I gave a shrug to say, “the jig is up.” She put the cooking spoon on the counter, turned to Theo, and said, “Santa’s not real.”

Although we were never big on the Santa myth, I dreaded this moment. I also thought we had a couple more years before facing it, that deductive little stinker. Neither Em nor I remembers our own moment of learning that Santa wasn’t real, but we both understood that this was potential for heartbreak. I was not ready for Theo to lose this innocence. How could he trust us, and how could I ask for his trust, after this elaborate lie was exposed?

“How do all the presents get here?” Theo asked.

We explained it all—hiding the gifts, waiting until he’s asleep, gathering them under the tree, eating the cookies ourselves, writing the note.

To my surprise, he didn’t look crushed. He looked amused.

“So,” he said. “You pretend you’re Santa.”

“Yes,” I said. “I guess we do.”

“You dress up?”

“Well, we have the Santa hat.”

Theo nodded.

Christmas Eve came at last. Theo didn’t ask where the presents were hid, as I thought he might. It’s more fun to play along, just like it’s fun to wrap old toys and play “birthday” all year long. He also didn’t make himself stay awake, as I thought he might, to witness the charade for himself. We read Christmas stories and said “Santa Claus comes tonight!” with hugs and smiles that said we were all playing this game together. Then our little angel went to sleep, and Em and I, right jolly old elves, went to work.

Who knew: the Christmas magic came from telling the truth.

That year, Theo learned that you can’t just roll around on the floor “believing harder” to make something supernatural happen. And I had to learn that the truth did not expel him from the Eden of childhood, as I feared. It didn’t reveal to him the deceitful world of adults; it revealed to me how much I have been enjoying the delightful world of children. Telling the truth showed us the way to make believe together.

Em and I arranged the presents and stockings, ate the cookies, and wrote the note from Santa. I don’t remember if we wore the Santa hat or not. One of us probably did. There’s nothing quite like the sparkle in our eyes when we do.

Brian Goedde has an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa and is an Associate Professor of English at the Community College of Philadelphia. His personal essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Seattle Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other places.

What we give at Christmas

13 December 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Chantal Travers

Without fail, every Christmas Eve
her cracked winter fingers
would peel chestnuts for the stuffing
No matter how much soaking before the roasting
the hard rind of this festive victim would splinter into tiny sharp slivers
making their way inside thinning nailbeds
turning from pink to angry crimson
Without any attachment to this seasonal side
he would tell her it wasn’t worth it
But she refused his suggestion to forget about them
their hearthy scent, this fiery holiday flavour
Salted buttery slugs steeped in her body since childhood
and in mine

Chantal Travers, originally from London, has lived in Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing, and currently Sydney. She is studying a Master of Arts in Writing and Literature at Deakin University, and she was recently published in Visible Ink. Chantal enjoys Qi Gong, Cacao and travelling but misses English Christmas.

Santa V Moon

11 December 2025 / Editor

Nonfiction by Deborah Shouse

“What if the moon is watching over us, to see if we’re good? Then the moon reports to Santa,” my seven-year-old grandson speculates. We are luxuriating in a early morning walk under a lush full moon. Robert has spent the night, and I’ll be driving him to his tenth day of second grade in an hour. Meanwhile, he is walking barefoot, tiptoeing around the sticks and acorns splayed against our suburban sidewalks, still wearing his orange and silver space ship pajamas.

“That’s an interesting idea,” I say.

“Well, Santa couldn’t really visit your house to find out. I mean, he eats too many cookies.”

Robert has a point. The whole all-knowing “naughty or nice” mythology is truly hard to rationalize. If the North Pole is the source of all longed-for presents, then they should be in high production mode by now. And Santa really needs to be there to guide and inspire his team. So how could he be observing all the children of the world while he’s running a Fortune 500 industry?

As Robert and I gaze at the moon, I imagine Santa popping down Robert’s chimney to take a look-see and double check the lad’s behavior. If Mr. Claus doesn’t watch his step, he might slip on a stray Lego or marker. Or, depending on his mastery of time zones, the Jolly One might arrive at dinner time. My daughter would mask her surprise and graciously invite the intruder in to join them for the meal, after checking his ID, of course.

As Robert and I walk, we count the number of dogs and relish the early morning birdsong. Then, in a parting of trees, the moon again beams over us, now surrounded by a coterie of peach tinted clouds, illuminated by the emerging sun.

“Maybe the clouds watch us,” Robert says. “Then they tell the sun, and the sun tells the moon, and the moon tells Santa.”

Even Orwell, with his famous views on Big Brother cataloging our every move, hadn’t thought to harness the kings and queens of the sky to do the spy work. I feel a swell of pride at my grandson’s problem solving abilities. He’s faced with information he cannot quite accept and yet he loves Santa and the holidays. He wants to believe but he is practical enough to require some foundation for this leap of faith.

“Maybe the clouds and the sun have the day shift and the moon works at night,” I say.

“Maybe,” Robert says.

Our walk is almost complete; we are nearing our house. Inside, we become efficient, achieving breakfast, packing Robert’s lunch, gathering his backpack, brushing hair and teeth.

Once in the car, we search the sky for the moon. But it’s already melted away, leaving only the frivolous clouds and the saucy sun as sentinels. Still, I hope they’re watching and appreciating Robert’s imagination and analytical thinking skills. I hope they give the moon, and Santa, a good report. On both of us.

Deborah Shouse is the author of Letters from the Ungrateful Dead. She has an MBA but uses it only in emergencies. She has written a myriad of essays and many books, including a novel, An Old Woman Walks Into a Bar. Read more at deborahshousewrites.com.

Busting Out of My Buster Browns

17 March 2025 / Editor

Nonfiction by Diana Raab

My mother blamed her ugly feet, laden with bunions and hammer toes, on her pointy shoes worn in the 1940s and 1950s. So, the day I took my very first step she began to obsess about the type of shoes I wore. I vividly remember the day in the 1950s, when she sat me in the back seat of her white Valiant and drove me to the local Buster Brown store in Fresh Meadows, New York. In my little frilly dress, she lifted me onto the platform, six stairs up, to have my feet measured. I remember the measurements to be quite time-consuming and scientific, and consisted of taking numerous measurements of different angles of my feet. The shoe salesman, dressed in a suit and tie, fitted my laced shoes and then ran a mobile x-ray machine over them to make sure my toes lay flat. Looking back I realize the seriousness and professionalism of his job.

From that day onwards and whenever I needed a new pair of shoes, particularly the week before the beginning of school, mother drove me back to the Buster Brown shoe store for a fitting. At school, I was the only girl not permitted to wear slip-on shoes. The week before my sixth grade prom, which I was to attend with Eric, the cutest blonde boy in the grade, I told my mother I wanted my first pair of slip-ons. Against what she called her better judgment, she agreed, but I was permitted to only wear them on that day. Even though I appreciate my mother’s gallant efforts, from that day on, I decided never again to wear laced shoes, except for sports, and became obsessed with slip-ons.

Perhaps because of this childhood trauma, as a young woman, I became obsessed with shoes of every color and style. At twenty-three, I got married and my husband called me Amelda Marcos, who was the First Lady of the Philippines and owned over three thousand pairs of shoes. When we took trips, my suitcase had more shoes than clothes!

Today, we all know that bunions and hammer toes are more related to a family history than to the type of shoes worn, although shoes can exacerbate a preexisting problem. Now in my late sixties, I have to thank my mother’s side of the family for my deformed toes and the bones growing in all different directions. I made the decision a long time ago not to become obsessed with wearing the right shoes. I wanted only beautiful shoes, because it did not matter; genetics would eventually doom me. A few years ago, when we moved into a new house, we had to build extra shelves in my closet, to accommodate every style and color shoe. Thanks, mom, for turning your obsession into my deep passion for shoes.

Diana Raab, MFA, PhD, is a memoirist, poet, workshop leader, thought-leader and award-winning author of fourteen books. She frequently writes on writing for healing and transformation. Her newest book is Hummingbird: Messages from My Ancestors, a memoir with reflection and writing prompts (Modern History Press, 2024). Visit her at https://dianaraab.com/.

frozen wave against sunlight — Photo by Hernan Pauccara on Pexels.com

My Wife Explains How My New Book is One Long Love Poem

9 November 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Steve Cushman

They’re all love poems,
Julie says, holding up my new book,
and I say, I don’t know about that.
What about the sad dog poems?
Love poem, she says,
The broken bones of childhood poems?
Love poem, she says,
The difficult relationship with my father poems?
She bites her lower lip. Definitely love poems.
And the ones about you,
which are sort of true, but also
an idealized version of our life?
Those, she says, are the loveliest of all.

Steve Cushman has published four poetry collections.

Estate Sale

19 August 2024 / Editor

Fiction by Deborah Wessell

“Excuse me. Excuse me? Would you take ten for this?” Lois hoisted the tuxedo
pants and jacket before the bored, merciless eyes of the man accepting money.

“Tag says fifteen.”

He was middle-aged, as she was, but lean and weathered, with a graying ponytail
and bare feet. His till was a fishing tackle box. Behind him a Sunday morning crowd
picked over the debris of someone’s life, the husband who had worn the tuxedo and read Sky & Telescope, the wife given to macramé and saving cottage cheese containers. Lois wondered if they were dead, but of course it would be ghoulish to ask.

“I know the tag says fifteen. But it’s not in good shape, and anyway I only have
ten dollars with me, so…”

“So?”

“Never mind,” she murmured, but he cut her off.

“OK, ten.”

Lois was certain that the man knew she had always wanted a tuxedo jacket, just to
wear with jeans, and that she feared she was too old and overweight to carry it off. Well, was he such a prize, with that silly hair and the T-shirt with the rude slogan? She pulled out her wallet and something dropped from her purse: a slip of paper folded around two twenty dollar bills.

“Oh!” said Lois, appalled. “Oh, that’s right, I went to the cash machine last night.
I could, I mean, if you want fifteen…”

The man snorted. “Forget it.”

Lois drove home in mortification, and it was days before she could bring herself to try on her purchase. The pants, at least, made her laugh: clown pants, much too short and huge around the waist, with stiff black suspenders. Then the jacket, heavy on her shoulders. She slid her hands down the lapels and smoothed the skirts over her hips, sighing over the bulges. Then she frowned and explored a miniature inside front pocket. A small rough nugget met her fingertips and she drew it forth: a tiny ivory wedge, smooth-sided, red-brown at the jagged base. A baby tooth.

Lois had a rushing vision of a dark bedroom, a child’s breathing, a slanting slice of light from the hallway. Daddy, with his barrel belly and his suspenders and his satin lapels, on his way to some long-ago fancy night out, steps to the bedside and slips one hand gently under the pillow to exchange a silvery dime for this disgusting little miraculous tooth.

The man in the rude T-shirt, was he that child? Even if he wasn’t, he was a child once, and someone loved him, or didn’t love him. Lois was dizzied by the thought, not only of the man, but of everyone, herself and her own children and her friends and their children and oh Lord, everyone she’d ever met or would never meet and all of them, every individual on this entire warm busy planet, would someday be dead, and there would just be these little things, these objects once significant of love. The thought was marvelous but entirely too much, and Lois threw the tooth away.

Deborah Wessell writes the Wedding Planner mystery series under the name Deborah Donnelly. She is a former librarian, copywriter, and speechwriter. She lives in Bellingham, Washington, with her writer husband and their unruly corgis.

Something Different

1 July 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Emily Lacey

You’re not even mad
that you’re bundled in a pink snowsuit
or that your hands are swallowed
by your sleeves and mittens.
You don’t care that your boots
are stiff or that your hat is strapped tight
below your chin
or that your nose is dripping,

but you’re enraged
that the snow is blocking
the sidewalk,
your mittens now little purple fabric fists
because you can’t go for your
daily walk.
You trudge your body
forward—into the mound—sink.
Mama,
make this go away,
Mama.

You wave at the snow falling,
like it’s something different.
You even try to kiss it.

Emily Lacey lives in Danvers, Massachusetts. Her work appears in Evening Street Review, Medical Literary Messenger, The Broken Plate, and Freshwater.

Image of author as young girl — Photo courtesy of author

Lucky Girl

1 April 2024 / Editor

Nonfiction by Carol E. Anderson

It’s 1950. I’m three years old, standing in our backyard next to a patch of wildflowers as tall as I am. My tiny right fist peaks out from the sleeve of my oversized double-breasted coat with crisscrossing lapels. Chubby knees extend into sturdy legs that lead to small feet housed in white anklet socks and polished white tennis shoes. Whisps of blonde hair flow back in the wind. My bangs, short and choppy, look like I took the shears to them myself. Atop my head is a tiny woolen cap.

My face is turned up. Eyes squint as I smile at my mom with the camera—my gleeful expression punctuated by a slight suggestion of a dimple in my left cheek. I’m anticipating something wonderful. The zoo? The circus? A birthday party?

I’m unaware that by the end of my fifth year, my father will suffer a visual disability wrought by incompetent doctors. He will never work again. My mother, a secretary, will numb her fingers typing away in a tiny cubicle to support our family, working for a boss half as smart as she. I will wish her to be like all the other moms and stay at home, fix me snacks after school, and teach me how to ride a bike. My brother will withdraw into a world of thoughts and books. We will never be friends.

Standing on the lawn in my miniature peacoat, I don’t realize that by the time I’m fifteen, I’ll be rejected by the Baptist church for loving a woman. I’ll begin to understand the word hypocrite. I’ll believe my parents’ teachings of love, kindness, generosity, and fairness are principles everyone strives to live by—tenets issued by God. I won’t know these tenets have exclusionary clauses invisible to innocent eyes, that I will witness Christian fundamentalism grow in twisted power and gird its flocks to act with naked cruelty on the belief that difference is a sin.

I don’t realize that at the age of twenty-one, I’ll be outed by my college classmates, introducing terror into my daily life. I’ll be astonished that all my efforts to guard this secret are as useless as a sheet of transparent tissue paper.

I am unaware that at age twenty-six, in my attempt to be straight, my boyfriend will dump me on our six-week road trip to be with a woman he met at his brother’s wedding the week before—and he will not repay the $800 he owes me.

Looking up at the camera without knowledge of the need for hope, I don’t know that my father will die one month before my twenty-eighth birthday, and that I’ll survive—that I will remain wrapped in the shimmering cords of his love even decades after he’s gone.

I am unaware that at age thirty-two I’ll start my own business as an organizational consultant and will coach leaders to inspire people rather than control them—that this work will help me understand the complexity of human beings, and their scars.

I don’t know that on my fiftieth birthday I’ll start a non-profit called Rebellious Dreamers to lift up women to reclaim their dreams—that it will last twenty-five years and eventually fund microloans for women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

I don’t realize that when I turn fifty-four, I’ll meet my great love, each of us destined for the other, that knowing her will smooth the jagged edges of terror and loss, that we will build a home on nine acres of land surrounded by trees and be rich in our chosen family of friends.

Standing with my beloved, in our own garden now, I’m anticipating something wonderful.

Carol E. Anderson is a life coach whose passions are travel and photography. She holds a doctorate in spiritual studies, and an MFA in creative nonfiction. She is the author of You Can’t Buy Love Like That: Growing Up Gay in the Sixties. Carol lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

suddenly the third day of spring

1 March 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Cecil Morris

laugh splashing
it is raining
but the sun is out and bright
and somewhere a rainbow
must be refracting missiles of light
must be fracturing tears
and the neighbor children
all three dark-haired slips in single digits
are outside and laughing
and squealing and opening their mouths
and pointing erupting glee
rain with sunshine
big juicy flashing drops
wetting their bare arms
darkening their dark heads
hearty fat drops smacking
sun-warmed concrete
with satisfying, cartoonish splats
the best of everything
how little it takes
to engender joy
laugh flashing

Cecil Morris retired after 37 years of teaching high school English and now tries writing himself what he spent so many years teaching others to understand and (maybe) enjoy. He has poems appearing in Ekphrastic Review, Hole in the Head Review, Rust + Moth, Willawaw Journal, and other literary magazines. Read his earlier poem Some Kinder Resolutions for a Better Year in The Bluebird Word.

Angel

1 February 2024 / Editor

Fiction by Paul Hadella

“You can say sorry all you want about breaking the lamp,” Mom said at the top of her lungs, “but this isn’t about breaking the lamp.” Then she stomped out of our apartment and slammed the door.

I asked Vince, “What’s she mean? If she’s not mad at us for breaking the lamp, then what’s she mad about?”

“Maybe she meant it’s about the money,” he said.

“The money?” I said.

“That now she has to buy us a new lamp,” my brother said, “and she doesn’t have the money. She never has the money for anything.”

“Do we really need the lamp?” I asked.

“I guess so,” said Vince. “I don’t know.” Then he asked me what I thought she meant.

“Beats me,” I said. “That’s why I asked you.”

“Could be she’s just mad because we’re boys, and boys play rough,” Vince said. “She really wanted girls. How many times has she told us that?”

I said, “She’s just teasing us when she says that.”

“Just teasing?” Vince grumbled. “Get real.”

Anyway, I’m not blaming the broken lamp all on Vince. It’s true, though, that I didn’t start it. He was the one who brought home the tennis racket with two busted strings. He found it on the grass outside Building Five. “It was just laying there,” he told me.

“What good is it?” I asked him.

“Watch,” he said. Then he went into the kitchen and came back with a sponge, just a bit damp, so it had some weight. Then he started whacking the sponge around the living room, using the racket like a hockey stick. “You be the goalie,” he told me.

We slid the coffee table against the wall and made it the goal. Then things got a little out of hand.

Mom walked through the door, home from work, about five minutes after we broke the lamp. She saw we were picking up the pieces.

Right away, Vince said to her, “Sorry for breaking the lamp.” I said it next. Mom tried plugging her temper but couldn’t. She yelled that thing about it not being about the lamp, then left me and my brother standing there in the living room, our heads down.

It wasn’t the first time Mom has stomped out of the apartment. It’s happened, I think, five other times. So me and Vince know how to handle it by now. First, we give Mom about fifteen minutes to cool down before we go get her and bring her back. We know where she’ll be. She walks down to the pond behind the apartment buildings, sits on a bench, and stares at the water.

Here’s how it usually goes.

First, when Mom hears us coming, she scoots to the middle of the bench. That gives me room to sit on one side of her and Vince on the other.

Then I take one of her hands, and Vince takes the other.

Then we all sit there and watch the water for a few minutes. None of us says anything.

Then I tell her I love her. Vince says it next. He should go first, because he’s older, but he always waits for me.

Then we promise we’ll try to behave better, and not make her life so rough.

Then we ask her to please come back home because we can’t live without her.

Then she kisses both of us on the cheek, and we walk back to our apartment together. Mom might even crack a joke or two to show there’s no hard feelings.

That’s how it usually goes—but that’s not how it went yesterday, after we broke the lamp. Not exactly. Yesterday, when me and Vince got to the edge of the parking lot behind Building Ten, we saw Mom down by the pond, just like we expected. She was even sitting on the same bench she always sits on.

Yesterday, though, she wasn’t there alone. She had company. Not a person—but a big white swan. There’s a bunch of swans that live at the pond. Yesterday, all but this one were out on the water, cruising around like little ships. They plowed right through the creases the breeze was making. This other one, though, was sitting on the grass, facing Mom, about ten yards from her and the bench. It looked white as an angel.

Even from where me and Vince had stopped, at the edge of the parking lot, we could tell Mom was talking to the swan. Talking and talking. Her hands moving to her words. You could bet she was telling the swan about our hockey game that got a little out of hand. I could almost hear her saying, “But it isn’t about breaking the lamp.”

The swan bobbed its head up and down as Mom talked. It was like an angel telling Mom, “Yeah, I get exactly what you’re saying, and I take pity on you.”

It even opened its wings and flapped them a couple of times—which made it look even more like an angel—a mighty angel. Maybe by flapping its wings it was giving Mom a blessing.

I spent a year in Catholic school, second grade—which is probably why I saw an angel and Vince just saw a swan. Vince has always gone to public school. He did think of something, though, that didn’t cross my mind. He said, “That swan must be a she.”

Paul Hadella is a journalist, creative writer and musician, living in Ohio. “Angel” is from a series of stories about his childhood on Long Island, New York.