A Patch Holiday Story: 'Magic Hat' Changes A Young Girl's Mind About Christmas

Clara Losey had creeping doubts about Santa Claus and the spirit and magic of Christmas until her grandmother came up with a plan that has been a Royal Oak tradition for three years. Patty Houghton, Peggy Losey and Sarah Malcolm are pictured in the second photo. (Photo submitted)

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You didn’t catch these elves sitting passively on a shelf Saturday.

Not these elves.

These elves were singing, shuffling and shouting, generally making happy spectacles of their glittered, jingling and costumed selves as they strolled through Royal Oak’s downtown area spreading random kindness and sprinkling holiday cheer.

An awful thing started the exuberant holiday tradition three years ago: A little girl stopped believing in Santa Claus.

Peggy Losey’s heart cried when her then 7-year-old granddaughter, Clara, began asking those questions the adults in young kids’ lives dread:

Is there really a Santa, or is it really Mom and Dad who put the presents under the tree? Even if those reindeer sprout wings, how can Santa make it to all those houses? You want me to believe that a fat man in a red suit slides down the chimney and doesn’t even get soot on his suit?

The Berkley woman stewed for days about what to do about Clara’s creeping doubts, turning her disappointment over in her head as she drove in solitude along the roads of Upper Michigan, where her job takes her.

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“How can I help her understand there’s a special magic about Christmas?” she recalled thinking. “I’ve got to make this a happy thing for her. I have to help her understand that even if you don’t believe a man in a red suit comes down the chimney, you are part of the holiday magic.”

The questions were answered while traveling in a perfect place for mulling: Up North – those rural parts of Michigan that aren’t defined so much by geography as they are by the state of mind produced by picturesque rolling hills, rippling trout streams and acres upon acres of blue lakes, orchards and wineries. Up North is a place where the people are friendly, life is good and kindness is infinite. So it’s no surprise that it was Up North that the seeds of Operation Help Clara Believe were planted.

“When you see people wearing elf hats, those are actually Santa’s helpers,” she told her granddaughter a few days later. “You don’t ever, ever, ever tell anyone what the secret hat means, but if you wear one, you’ll understand. In order to wear one, you have to earn it.”

“How do I do that?” Losey recalled Clara asking.

“You have to pass the magic and the spirit of Christmas on.”

Suddenly, Santa Pulled the Plug

The original scheme was for the girl to earn her elf hat by helping Santa hand out gifts to some Detroit families who don’t always seem to get their share of holiday magic.

The outdoor event was cancelled because of miserable weather, and Losey was frantic.

Clara had signed on to this business of a holiday elf with a secret hat who goes about spreading holiday mirth and magic. She was invested.

“We’ve got Clara totally believing this is how you earn your hat,” Losey told her daughter, Heidi Ulm, during their regular phone calls to Germany, where Ulm lives. “What are we going to do?”

Ideas were floated, then jettisoned. Malls required permits. Nursing homes were booked. Time was running out.

That’s when Ulm suggested Clara and whoever else they could round up don merry costumes and spread holiday cheer around the streets of Royal Oak.

Doubts Melt Away

They adopted elf names that matched the adornments on their costumes: Clara is “Miss Jingles,” Losey is “Miss Candy Cane,” Sarah Malcolm (Clara’s godmother) is “Miss Glitter” and family friend Patty Houghton is Miss Polly Sugar Plum.

“We were in and out of shops,” Losey said of the inaugural elf-dusting in 2012. “Keep in mind, none of us can sing, but there we were in all of our grandeur, belting out ‘Jingle Bells,’ saying ‘Happy Holidays’ and then walking out.”

Clara’s doubts about the magic of Christmas were melting away.

“Oh, Oma,” she said, using the German word for grandmother. “Did you see? I made that man smile.”

It was raining, so after they’d depleted their supply of candy canes and Santa novelty glasses, they went to Northwood neighborhood for some hot chocolate. They were sitting at the front window of a Coney Island restaurant when another customer asked Clara her name.

“I’m Miss Jingles,” she said.

“What’s your real name?” he asked

Losey nodded her permission for Clara to share her real name.

“Clara,” he said, “I want you to know that today, you made my heart smile.”

“Who Planted This Man?”

The adults sat staring at one another in stunned silence, tears spilling down cheeks chapped from the cold.

“Who planted this man here to bring this story full circle?” Losey wondered.

When they composed themselves, the man was gone.

“We wondered, ‘What just happened?’” Losey said. “Clara’s just sitting there sipping her hot chocolate, and we’re choking back tears.”

As suddenly as he had vanished, the man reappeared and presented Clara a small gift he had gone out to buy during his mysterious absence. And then he was gone again.

“If you can hear that story and still not believe in the spirit of Christmas, you have a cold heart,” Losey said.

In 2012, the year of the inaugural Royal Oak elfing, Clara earned her elf hat from Santa during his regular stop at the Losey home.

“That look in her eyes …” her grandmother began, trailing off. “She walked around that night, proud as a peacock, because the elf hat is something her twin 8-year-old sisters don’t have yet.”

Clara also earned an understanding of Christmas. She made people smile. She gave, and she received.

Since then, the tradition of elfing Royal Oak has “taken on a whole life of its own,” Losey said. She and her granddaughter are co-authoring a book about Clara’s journey back to belief called “The Secret Hat.”

On Saturday, they wrote another chapter.

“We ask nothing from anyone,” said Miss Glitter – that’s Sarah Malcolm, Clara’s godmother. “All we are trying to do is spread some Christmas and holiday cheer, put a smile on someone’s face and spread kindness to everyone we meet.”

They planned to pass out some surprise gifts along the way.

“People give us looks,” Malcolm said. “People seem to expect that we’re trying to collect money for something because that happens a lot at this time of the year. We just want to spread holiday cheer, and to let people know there are kind people out there who want nothing other than to spread the magic of Christmas.”

Reaction ranges from that occasional skepticism to effusive praise, but rarely includes a “bah humbug.”

“No, not really,” Malcolm said when asked if there weren’t maybe a few holiday haters out there who try to stomp on their joy. “Some are either shocked or don’t know what to say, but mostly, it’s just a lot of people who smile and see that we’re just having fun spreading the magic of Christmas and the holidays.”

And what does Clara believe now?

“She believes in the magic of Christmas,” her grandmother said.

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