It’s coming on Christmas,. Yeah, I like to sing along to my blog posts. They’re cutting down trees We cut down our tree over the weekend. Last night we started decorating it. They’re putting up reindeer, singing songs of joy and peace Yesterday, I went to The Holiday Concert at Miranda’s school.

Songs of joy and peace…

I’ve been thinking a lot about what sort of country we live in recently, particularly about the polarization, from the famous F the south and Sorry everybody to Sorry cows. America, where are you now, don’t you care about your sons and daughters.

I’ve been think a lot about the people that I meet via Blog Explosion, and the about the comments about blogs that Sigmund, Carl and Alfred have been making.

I’ve been thinking a bit about how we teach our children, Teach your children well, their parents hell… Toddlers waving flags and talking with politicians. Middle school kids singing songs of joy and peace.

The one final thought that has been bouncing around in my mind is a sign I saw on I-78 driving to pick up my Mairead from college. It was put up by the sort of people that hang Santa Claus in effigy and said something like ‘Santa Claus is a myth. Telling lies to our children only contributes to the moral decal of our society’.

So, with all of this, I will embark on a flight of fancy. I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky. Yup. That is what my daughters sang at school assemblies when they were younger. Childhood innocence. Pure and simple. Perhaps we need more of this belief.

The concert yesterday started with the chamber choir, mostly eighth graders I believe, singing “Flying Free”. I am sure that some of those young girls in their black skirts and white blouses have some angsty teen blogs. Perhaps a mother or two in the audience has a Mommy blog, and maybe even one of those men in their nice suits, rushing in briefly to hear their child sing, and then rush out have a ‘Business Driven Life’ type blog.

Middle school. Those years when the hormones start kicking in. When boys become interested in girls, girls become interested in boys, and neither have the vocabulary to deal with what they are feeling.

I wish that all my life I'd be, Without a care and Flying Free.

No longer is flight a belief, it has been relegated to a wish.

But life is not a distant sky, Without a cloud, without rain. It isn’t even a wish that seems attainable. The childhood innocence is getting lost in the considerations of hormones, boys and girls, and the next homework assignment, or for the business driven person, the next meeting or deal. No, this song isn’t a lie that is destroying our society. It is a little more realistic.

Later, the seventh graders sang, “Sleigh Ride”, talking about the desire for life to be like a Currier and Ives painting. I paused to wonder how many of the kids had ever snuggled in a sleigh, roasted chestnuts on an open fire, or for that matter, seen a Currier and Ives painting.

Can it be that it was all so simple then? Or has time rewritten every line?

The seventh graders also sang, “One Small Voice” from Sesame Street. I thought back on my days as a business driven dad, sitting through some school performance, jet lagged having just flown in from Switzerland. Watching Sesame Street with a sick child in my lap.

I’ve looked at life from both sides now, From win and lose and still somehow, It’s life’s illusions I recall, I really don’t know life at all

So yes, this holiday season, I’m going to remember life’s illusions. I’m going to listen to one small voice, the voice crying out in the wilderness, the voice of a newborn baby, the voice of a child marveling at the candles of Hanukkah and I’m going to pray that we all become a little more childlike.

I will embrace flight, and Santa, and all the myths of hope and joy, especially when the darkness seems so palpable.