The Magic of Santa, Seen Through My Father\'s Eyes
I watched the world shrink to a single glow,
the kitchen light trembling as my dad
whispered the night’s secret into the steam of his coffee.
His eyes—steady as a compass—turned the ordinary
into a map of reindeers, chimneys, and soft‑footed wonders.
In the flicker of the Christmas tree he saw
the pulse of a thousand wishes,
each ornament a tiny planet
that spun on the axis of his smile.
He didn’t just believe Santa; he wove him
into the very fibers of his jacket,
into the curl of his moustache, into the chuckle
that rose when I asked, “Will he really come?”
When snow fell, his gaze caught each flake
as if it were a messenger from the North Pole,
and he taught my small hands to read
the language of frost—“Hush, the sleight of hand,
the sleight of heart,” he’d say, and I listened.
He lifted the wrapped gifts with reverence,
not for the ribbon but for the moment
when my eyes would meet his—two lanterns
igniting the same ancient myth.
In that instant the world stopped its spin,
and a single thought rang clear:
The magic isn’t the man in red;
it is the love that makes his eyes glow brighter
than any starlight, any candle, any dream.
So every December, when the hearth sighs
and the night sighs louder, I look into his eyes
and see Santa—a gentle, glittering promise—
reflected, a thousand times over, in the love that only a father can give.