Making Magic

I have watched kids of friends and relatives go through the Harry Potter phase and wondered if Finn would do the same.  I needn’t wonder anymore.

Finn has close friends who have seen the movies and had the books read to them, so he has embraced the Harry Potter world wholeheartedly in their play together and now on his own.

His Obi Wan Kinobi robe that he received as a gift last year has been re-purposed as Harry’s robe.

I suppose Harry and Obi Wan are not dissimilar archetypes.

So we went to the library and checked out the first book in the Harry Potter series.  And it has quickly become a bedtime staple.

“Expecto!” has become a prefix for almost anything he wants to manifest.

A small dowel he found in the tool shed has become his wand most of the time. Sometimes he uses a knitting needle. Sometimes a random stick.

We have decided to homeschool this year, which Finn is very excited about.  He says our school should be called “Homewarts” and I should be professor Dumbledaddoo.  I suppose then Erin would be Mommy McGonagall.

Homeschooling can be a little intimidating.

Random conversations with parents who have done it and some friends who were homeschooled have helped to put my mind at ease.  I’m not reinventing the wheel, and from what I’ve read so far, there are enormous resources available.

After we made the decision, it kind of felt like we were always heading in this direction.

It’s almost impossible not to do a certain amount of homeschooling.

I mean, there are a million questions a day no matter how you slice it.  You can either answer them intelligently, find the answers if you don’t have them, or just say, “I don’t know leave me alone.”

But if you choose the last option, the same questions circle back around endlessly.

Erin and I have chosen to answer as many questions as we can intelligently so I am imagining our Homeschool to be a more structured version of that with a little more leading and slight nudging, interspersed with comforting daily routines.

But what do I know?

Well, I do know Homeschool will begin September 1st , the same as Hogwarts.

There is a temptation to go all out and create our own little Hogwarts atmosphere but Finn is such a little actor he might get lost in the play acting.  But there could be ways to use his fascination in creative ways.

When I mentioned we might have to make a proper wand in our woodworking class, he lit up.

“Will it make real magic?” he asked.

“YOU make the magic”  I said.

“I do?” he said, not convinced.

Well maybe we will do it together.

Making Christmas

During dinner, following an unusually long moment of silence, Finn sighed heavily and, as if suddenly having a huge realization, said:

“Daddoo, I REALLY need to get a new sewing kit. With LOTS of cloth and needles and everything.”

“Really, why is that?”  I asked.

“Because I want to be an elf. And I don’t have a costume. And to make a costume, I’m REALLY going to need a lot of stuff,” he said.

“You mean a Christmas elf?” I inquired.

“Yeah,” he said shortly as if, “What else?”

Over the last several weeks Finn’s questions about Santa Claus and everything relating to Christmas have increased in number and complexity. He has only visited Santa once, when he was two, but he still talks about it.

“So that Santa, the one that I sat on his lap, that was the real Santa right?” he asked one day randomly when we were all in the car.

“What do you think?” we responded.

“I think he was,” he continued, “But if HE was the real Santa who are all the other Santas?”

“Good question,” Erin said.

We gave him the usual spiel about them all being Santa’s helpers.

“Why do they want to be Santa’s helpers?” he asked. “And why does he need SO many helpers? Isn’t he like magic and can do anything? And how can he go all around the world in one night?!”

He had posed the ‘around-the-world-in-one-night’ question a week or so earlier after having a conversation with friends. Someone (it was never clear who) had “looked it up on the internet” and said it was “impossible.”

Before the age of too much information, it seemed much easier to maintain the mythology of Santa Clause. There was some sharing of opinions among friends but very few of us kids dared to say that anything related to Santa was “impossible”.

Santa was real for me until I was eight. My Mom had a stock line about Santa when we posed questions that demonstrated a waning belief in his existence.

“When you stop believing in him, he stops coming to visit,” she said.

None of us wanted that. Though it actually turned out not to be true, it did keep the mysticism alive for a while longer.

Even in our teens and early twenties, at Christmas time, my siblings and I could often be heard shouting in earshot of our Mom, “I believe Santa! I believe!”.

“Yeah, I know you do!” she’d reply with a chuckle.

Back at the dinner table, my conversation with Finn continued…

“By the way, Daddoo, are Christmas elves real?” he said, searching my eyes intensely.

“What do you think?” I said.

“Ummm” (there was a pause) “Could be!” he said. “And anyway, even if they’re not real, I can still PRETEND to be one.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“So I still need the stuff to make the costume,” he said.

“I understand,” I said, “We’ll get to work on that.”

Christmas magic is alive and well in Ulster County.