Why Won't Santa Visit Poor Children?

A Christmas story from the Philippines by Roy Thomsitt

 

 

 

Di Gives Out Santa's Christmas Gifts

 

From the moment she received the pen and notepad, Di was scribbling away frantically for the next 40 minutes. Sitting for the whole of that time in her cross-legged position by the bedroom door, she looked up several times a minute, focussed on a particular gift, and then scribbled on the notepad. Nobody troubled her, just looked at her sometimes, and gave in to the feeling that Di, despite her physical fragility, was very much in control.

After the first three minutes, Di ripped off the first sheet of paper from the notepad. Ma was nearby, so she called her, holding up the sheet of paper.

"Ma. Here's the first twenty children. They're all 0 to 11 years old. Can someone go and get them all," Di asked, excited to see the faces of the children as they arrived. "Can they queue outside, in that order, please ask them, Ma?."

Ma glanced at the list; it was mostly children furthest from the house. Without questioning Di, or even commenting, she went off to a neighbour's house, to ask if they could gather those children.

By the time Ma returned to the gift filled house, Di was ripping off another sheet of paper, and they smiled at each other as Di automatically handed the sheet to her Mom. Ma had returned with her neighbour's husband, as he was the next volunteer to go collecting the children, and she immediately passed him the next list of twenty children.

As he hurried off, as happy as could be to see what a joyous day this would be for all the local children, Ma gathered Aunt Paula, Uncle James, and Maricel outside the house. The shock and bemusement was gradually being replaced by a busy excitement of their own. Especially Maricel, who could not wait to tell her friend in Lapland the Christmas events at Estrella.

Maricel and Aunt Paula set about preparing some of the food left over from the party, plus whatever else they could find, as they knew most would not have eaten breakfast before they arrived. But it was an enormous task, but neighbours helped too. Uncle James would try to get the children in order as Di had listed them, and that was probably the most difficult job of all.

Ma had rushed off to gather some more near neighbours to help gather further groups of children, and again only just returned in time to receive the next list from Di. Everyone soon got caught up in the whole process, busy wanting to help Di or actually helping when asked.

Di was fully occupied for all of forty minutes, hurriedly scribbling down the name for the child to receive each and every gift in the pile. Nobody had stopped to think if, or how, Di would know who to give each gift to, and whether she could actually see those that were out of sight, buried in the pile.

That was of no importance, to Di or to anyone. What had been a wonderful Christmas Eve in the life of Estrella was now becoming a glorious Christmas Day. As the minutes passed, more and more children arrived in groups, an excited chattering mass of smiling faces gathering in the garden, with uncle James trying to get them in line as Di had requested.

Di was now getting very excited herself, as she was down to the last few gifts.

"Ma, Ma" she called. Tina heard and found Ma outside.

Ma hurried to her daughter, in her still cross-legged position, inside the house. "This is the last."

Di hurriedly wrote down the last name, and gave the list to Ma as she stood up. Di had numbered each list, and that was list number 13. In all, there were 248 names on the lists, all between 0 and 11. There was even a baby on there who was just 2 days old.

Tina came back in and went over to Di, who was now allowing her own excitement to bubble over.

"Tina, 248 gifts for 248 children, it's so wonderful."

Di had experienced so many amazing moments in the past month, and was a happy child by nature; yet, as she stood and looked across the mound of Christmas gifts filling the room, she felt it was the happiest moment of her life.

"248," gasped Tina. But then Tina looked at the pile herself, and added:

"But how........." Tina hesitated. "Oh, never mind."

Tina then gave Di a hug; she had just had to accept that she had a special little cousin who could count gifts that were hidden beneath a pile of other gifts.

"Cool outfit, Di," Tina then laughed. Di did a little dance and short catwalk to show it off, tripping over a large boxed gift in the process, and only prevented from falling by Tina's quick reflexes.

"Shall we start?" said Di. "I can't wait to see how happy the children are."

Tina laughed: "That's if my Pa's got them in order yet."

Tina went outside to check and her father gave her the go ahead. He had succeeded, but with the help of a couple of villagers. A bemused and excited queue of children, and parents carrying very young children, stretched way, way outside of the garden.

For all but a few of these children, it would be the first time they had received a Christmas gift. No wonder they were waiting with such anticipation. If only they could see inside the house.

Wherever they were in the queue, their turn would come. Di had sent out a message, which passed along the queue, to say each had a very special gift; but to please be patient, as only one at a time could come in.

So, patient they were; as patient as young children could possibly be.

 

Next: Santa Claus Story (cont)