For years and years and years Emily has believed. Every Christmas Eve growing up she would go to a candle-light service and when home in bed her parents would read her “The Night Before Christmas”. When she grew older, and her parents no longer went through the motions with her at Christmas time, Emily would read the stories to herself and try to keep the spirit alive as much as she could. She never doubted his existence, even when others called her childish and idealistic. Even at the age of 15 she still believed, no matter what any one else said, no matter how immature it seemed to still believe, and no matter how many of her friends had decided they no longer believed he really existed. Emily knew he was real, after all, she could feel it in the air; she could see it on the faces of thousands, of millions around the world, she knew that he had visited their homes and given them what they had asked for, and he had been to her home and given her what she had asked for. She new that it was real and it wasn't just made up by her parents when she was a kid to make her feel good. She believed, whole heartedly, she thought. But this year, Emily, now 26, woke up on Christmas Eve eerily aware of all the pain in the world. She saw the millions more that didn't believe, that hadn't gotten what they had asked for. Emily’s world, her love, her sweet home suddenly didn’t look the same. So Emily made her greatest Christmas wish yet, Emily was wishing for things to get better this Christmas. Would he come through this time? Would she wake up Christmas morn and find things well with the world, find things better? Would he do this for her? Could he do this for her? The doubt, uncommon and strong for Emily, began to sneak in. She started to see the cracks that all her friends had told her about, the cracks she had ignored before. The questioning swarmed her already cloudy head, like, “How could he do all that?” “That bag would be way too heavy for him to carry.” “How could he make it into all those homes?” “Doesn’t it seem like too much for one man?” Emily started looking at her belief in this spirit, this man, so prominent one season a year, with contempt. She started to think to herself how no one really seems to be different because of him. Parents really only seem to talk to their kids about him once a year. She asked herself, "would he really be ok with us only thinking about him during one season of the year, forgetting about him the rest of the time, and still give us gifts?" “Has my belief ever really changed anything, even me?” she actually said out loud. She realized she had participated in all these ancient traditions for forever and not one of them really meant anything to her. She thought, “I’ve done all the traditions, I’ve sung all the songs, and where has it really gotten me? Emily started to think the same way so many others had thought before her. She "realized" like they “realized” that it just isn’t plausible. It isn’t realistic to believe in fairy tales anymore. It is time to grow up and know the truth, no matter how hard it is to swallow, that when you wake up on Christmas morning the world will still be in pain, the world will still be the same, and chances are that you won’t really care anyway, and you won’t think about this again until next year this time, shortly after Halloween.
Emily was now resolute. She now knew that she had allowed the wool to be pulled over her eyes far too long. Emily could now see why all her friends had stopped believing so long ago. Most of her friends had stopped believing shortly after they realized Santa Claus was a sham. Emily decided it was time to stop believing, once and for all in the man, this spirit, this Jesus.
The End.
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