When Wonder Found Its Name
Kringle Spirit is the name I gave to the part of me that never stopped dreaming, and finally stopped hiding.
The first Christmas in our new home was special. New traditions were beginning. The tree was up. The rooms were decked out. The walkway glowed. The house itself shimmered with lights. It should have felt complete. Joyful, even.
But there was something else.
A pull.
A whisper.
A what if?
In the front of our new house stood a towering Norway Spruce. Old. Majestic. It stood there in silence, yet somehow louder than anything else.
No matter how hard I tried to focus on the decorations we had already put up, my mind kept drifting to the one we hadn’t.
That tree.
I would drive home from work in the evening, turn up the street, and there it was. Standing tall. Proud. Completely unlit.
And every time I saw it, this thought would rise in me, uninvited and unrelenting:
If that tree were wrapped in lights…
If it had a star on top…
Imagine how it would make people feel.
Not just me, but everyone.
Everyone coming home from a long day.
Everyone driving through the neighborhood.
Everyone bundled in coats and scarves, walking their dog or pushing a stroller, turning the corner and catching a glimpse of something so big, so bright, and so full of joy that they couldn’t help but smile.
I started bringing it up constantly. Every friend. Every family member who came to see the house. I would point to the tree and say, "But doesn’t it need Christmas lights?"
It was like I was collecting votes to validate the thing that was growing inside me.
The idea didn’t feel optional. It felt alive. Like it had chosen me.
But that first Christmas came and went.
The tree stayed dark.
And still, the idea would not leave.
All winter and spring, every time I left the house or came back home, I would find myself staring at it again.
The idea wasn’t a passing fancy. It was tireless. Persistent. Warm and wild and waiting.
I would catch myself thinking:
How many lights would it take?
How would I get them up that high?
Would anyone even care if I did it?
What about a star? How big would it need to be? And what if it fell?
A voice in my head kept saying, "This is crazy. This isn’t possible."
But louder than that voice was another one:
It has to happen.
And the thing was, I couldn’t explain why. Not fully. Not in any logical way. This wasn’t about being festive. It wasn’t about holiday spirit in the decorative sense.
It was something deeper.
Something aching to be shared.
It felt like I was trying to light something not just outside the house, but inside myself too.
By summer, I was still obsessed.
We went on vacation to South Carolina. The air was thick. The sun was relentless. The kind of heat that slows everything down and makes each moment feel heavier.
And yet I could not stop thinking about Christmas.
I was standing in flip-flops, sweat pouring down my back, and all I could think about was how many strands of lights I would need to reach the top of the tree. What kind of plug setup would I need? What was the tallest ladder I could get?
I was haunted in the best way.
That is when I brought it up to my sister.
Now, my sister is the kind of person every dreamer needs. She doesn’t just nod politely. She listens. She sees you. And then she starts thinking about how to help you pull it off.
When I told her what I had been obsessing over, decorating the massive tree in our front yard like something out of Rockefeller Center, she didn’t laugh at me. She laughed with me.
We imagined the ridiculousness of it together. Me climbing the tree like Clark Griswold, hanging on for dear life, tangled in a mess of lights and hope.
Then she said, "What if you asked Dad to get one of those man-lifts they use at work?"
I laughed. Of course I laughed. I couldn’t picture it.
But she wasn’t joking.
She called him into the room. Explained the whole idea. And he smiled in that way dads do when they realize their kid isn’t letting something go.
"That tree really stuck with you, huh?" he said.
Then he paused, thought for a second, and said,
"Yeah… I think we could get a machine up there."
That was it.
The idea, this thing that had taken root in my brain for months, had just been given its first real maybe.
And once you get your first real maybe, you can’t stop. Not really.
My sister and I kept talking. Not just about the tree, but about something bigger. Something that had started to take shape.
What if there was a way to share this feeling?
This Christmas itch.
This longing for joy and warmth and wonder.
With more people.
I told her about an Instagram account I really liked at the time called @scarymommy. It was clever. Nostalgic. Beautifully real.
What if I did something like that, I said. But for Christmas.
A space where people could go to feel what I was feeling.
A place to laugh.
To reminisce.
Maybe even to heal.
She didn’t hesitate.
"Then do it," she said.
"Don’t just talk about it. Start it."
And suddenly, something bigger started to form.
Not just a tree lighting. Not just a home project.
A feeling.
A place where people could let their guard down.
A space where it was okay to feel deeply.
To believe in things that didn’t make sense.
To be a kid at heart, unapologetically.
We sat down and started throwing out names.
I didn’t want anything cheesy or obvious like ChristmasMagic or SantaGram. I wanted something with heart. Something warm. A little nostalgic. But not too on the nose.
We tossed around names like Père Noël. Papa Noël. Sinterklaas. Father Christmas. None of them fit.
I mentioned how I had always loved the name Kris Kringle. There was just something about it. It felt... right. Like the version of Santa who wasn’t just a figure, but a feeling.
But I still didn’t want to use the name directly.
I didn’t want to be Santa.
The thought of portraying Santa, wearing the suit, the beard, the workshop, had never crossed my mind.
But looking back now, I can see how the spirit of it all was already starting to live within me.
This wasn’t about being Santa. That wasn’t part of the story yet.
I just wanted to share the Christmas spirit.
And that is when my sister said it.
"What about… Kringle Spirit?"
I let it settle.
I was exhausted. It was nearly 1 a.m.
But the name hung in the air like a note that hadn’t quite faded.
Kringle Spirit.
Hmm.
The next day, I still wasn’t sure. But something in me had shifted.
I started searching for Christmas stores nearby. I visited a few. Bought some knickknacks and signs. Took pictures of ornaments and fake snow. It was like I was preparing for something, even if I didn’t know what it was yet.
I still wasn’t completely sold on the name.
But it was getting harder and harder to imagine calling it anything else.
The following day we packed up the car and started the long 11-hour drive home.
And then, somewhere in the middle of Maryland, in the dead heat of July, we got our sign.
In front of us was a red SUV.
On the back window was a giant decal of Santa Claus waving.
Beneath it, a custom red license plate that read: SANTA CLAUS.
My heart grew three sizes, my breath shortened as a smile grew on my face.
I pulled out my phone. Took a picture. Texted it to my sister.
Her response came quickly:
"KRINGLE!... It’s a sign."
And it was.
I didn’t need any more convincing.
By the time we pulled into our driveway, I knew.
That tree was getting lights.
That name, Kringle Spirit, was sticking.
And this, whatever it was becoming, was happening.
I got out of the car, looked up at that massive, unlit spruce, and smiled.
This wasn’t just an idea anymore.
It was a calling.
The spark had become a flame.
And that flame would grow brighter than I ever could have imagined.
Coming Next Week on Kringle Spirit
Next week, I’ll take you back to the very first time we decorated the tree, from underestimating how many lights we’d need, to watching the large machine chew up my front lawn, to working through the freezing cold with my dad, chasing this wild idea that somehow felt bigger than both of us.
There were mistakes, there were laughs, and there was that one perfect moment when everything came to life.
It was messy. It was magical.
And for a second, it felt like anything was possible.
The first Kringle Spirit tree lighting, full of sparkle, shivers, and pure Christmas wonder.
🎁 Don’t miss the next spark of magic.
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