Excerpt:

It was Christmas Eve of 1958 when I saw Santa Claus, the real Santa Claus. 

That was last year, when I was eight.  Now I am nine, and it is December 24th again, and I am lying in bed, waiting.  I open the window so that I can feel the crackling Christmas Eve air.  I watch as the light from the big star above the trees beyond the Andersons’ barn shines brighter and brighter.  And I jump when I hear a noise in the hallway. 

“Tess?  Are you awake?”  Evvie pokes her head into my room. 

I let out my breath and tell my heart to stop beating so fast.  “I’m awake,” I reply. 

My sister dashes barefoot across the floor and leaps onto the bed. 

I can’t sleep,” she says, and I know why.  Evvie is twelve years old, and she has asked out parents for a makeup kit for Christmas.  She is beside herself with excitement over the idea of being able to war lipstick and maybe some blue eye shadow in order to impress Wesley Johnson, who is a year ahead of Evvie at Hopewell Junior High.  Our parents would have a fit if they knew that’s why Evvie wants this present, which I don’t think they have bought for her anyway.

“I can’t sleep either,” I tell Evvie.

We are excited, but for very different reasons.  I don’t say anything about this to Evvie, though.  Evvie does not believe in Santa or in the magical world that is part of our everyday world – the one that is there sort of at the edges, something you might be able to see out of the corner of your eye if you turn to just the right place at just the right moment. 

If you truly believe.