Sit down with a mug a cider everyone...I got hit with a little writing bug today and penned a little story inspired by today's events at my church. Enjoy!
Every year, my church hosts a luncheon for the single parents of the church. It’s a special pizza lunch where we honor the hard work that single parents go through to raise kids on their own. Many of the parents raise their kids without the help of another parent or even child-support. The church recognizes that Christmas can be an especially stressful season to these parents. I’ve known for several years that this luncheon is a part of the church Christmas festivities, but have never attended – either to volunteer or just be a spectator. Well, this year I decided to get involved. I told the minister heading it up, Jay, that I was willing to help if he needed me. He said he'd love to have me help and would be in touch with details. I pictured myself serving pizza, pouring cokes, cleaning up paper plates, etc. But boy was I in for a surprise! About a week later, Jay said he had a “special task” he wanted to give me at the luncheon. Special?
“Yes. You see, every year Dustin and Lorraine dress up as Santa and Mrs. Claus. They pass out gifts to the children, we say a prayer, and take pictures of the kids opening their presents.” At this I laughed heartily. You see, Dustin is very close friend of mine. Perfectly built for Santa if he stuffs a few pillows around him. He’s not fat, but he’s a big guy and loves kids dearly. And he’s Chinese.
Jay continues...“I always have some people lined up for some of Santa’s helpers. But this year we’re a few hands short.” It doesn’t surprise me really. Jay is one of the more unorganized ministers on our ministerial staff. He's always taking care of things at the last minute and running around wondering what he’s forgotten. Even though administration and organization are not his gifts, truly I admire and respect this man for his ability to love and shepherd.
Jay says, “Since we’re short, would you mind helping Santa pass out some of the gifts to the kids?” I smiled widely at the thought.
“Absolutely Jay! I would love to!” As I’m thinking to myself, this is much better than wiping up pizza sauce and spilled cokes in the cafeteria! This might actually be a lot of fun!
“Great! Andi, I appreciate your help so much. I can always count on you to help out when it comes to the kids. You can come by my office 30 minutes before the lunch and get on your outfit. It’ll be cleaned and pressed, ready to go.”
“Outfit?”
“Yeah. Santa’s helpers are elves. You have a cute little elf costume to wear. You’ll fit into it perfectly since you’re little. Just make sure to have either red or green tights with you.”
“Tights?” My heart is gripping at this point. Elf costume? Tights? In public? In front of my church family? I sigh heavily. I think to myself, Can I wipe tables instead? I’m imagining that messy pizza sauce and spilled cokes don’t sound so bad at this point.
“Andi, we really need some help with this. Kendall Hopkins is off at college and won’t be able to be an elf this year. There aren’t many people that’ll fit that little costume. Please?” His big brown eyes, soulful and questioning. Pleading really.
I picture myself dressed as an elf and start giggling. I nod and say, “Okay. I’ll do it. But I'm doing this for the kids you know. You owe me one!” Jay laughs, hugs me good-bye and I walk off thinking that my minister is much shrewder than I give him credit for. But I’m still smiling because I know I’m going to look like an idiot in that costume, but the kids are going to love it! Man, wait till Neil find out about this. I'll never hear the end of it!
So today, after church services, the luncheon was held in our cafeteria. Parents begin filing in with their children, ages from 2 to 17. The cafeteria’s noise level gets rowdy with chatter, laughter, and the occasional crying child. Pizza is served and cokes are poured. One single mom struggles to keep her four little boys in line, while she prepares a plate for each of them. They looked like little stair steps, all dark haired and exactly a head shorter than the one next to them. The biggest and oldest is helping the mother juggle plates and trying to keep the youngest from wandering off. At a nearby table, two little girls about 9 are guzzling Dr. Pepper and trying to out burp each other, making their younger brother giggle and their father smile with pride. Volunteers are wiping tables; parents are discussing the stress of the holiday finances. As the pizza is finished the kids go off in a corner to play games and wait for Santa’s arrival. It doesn't get quieter, but the noise is just focused in one area of the room. Soon you hear it. The bells – jingling in a rhythmic jangle. It’s getting louder and louder and the tittering sounds of the children get quieter and quieter. You can see them looking around, trying to find the source of the noise.
“Ho-ho-ho! Merry Christmas! Ho-ho-ho! Merry Christmas!”
The young children begin squealing and running towards the door. The teenagers smile, but look embarrassed to be involved in such childish excitement. They roll their eyes at each other, but walk towards the door anyway. Parents are soon in tow.
“Ho-ho-ho! Merry Christmas! Ho-ho-ho! Where are all those kids anyway?” Bellows the man in a red suit and black boots. He enters the cafeteria and the children’s chatter and excitement escalate as they surround him, wanting to hug him and touch his red fuzzy suit. There is Mrs. Claus behind him carrying a tray of cookies and two elves carrying sacks of wrapped presents. Yes, one of those elves is me. Complete with jester-like outfit, red tights and a jingle-bell cap. I feel like a complete fool, although Neil has told me several times what a cute little elf I make. But through his twinkling eyes, I think he’s got a secret fetish for me in pointy green booties. I just don’t press the matter since we’re at church. Is it a sin to talk about fetishes at church?
I turn the corner and see all the children swarming Dustin in his Santa outfit. Parents standing in the background, smiling and taking pictures. Within the next few minutes, I realize why he’s done this the last four years.
Santa scoops up one little girl about 4 years-old, named Chloe.
“Santa! I’ve missed you!” She says as she wraps her arms around his neck. “Did you get my letter?” Her dark hair falling over her big brown eyes as she hugs him. Tiny black shoes peek out from underneath her little red velvet dress.
“Ho-ho-ho! Yes, Chloe I did. I’m here today to give you one present, but that’s all. You have to wait until Christmas morning to get the rest.”
She squeals and plants a pizza-flavored kiss on his cheek. Her eyes full of excitement, could not be distracted from his face unless it were an act of God. Then it dawns on me…Chloe really thinks Dustin is Santa! I smile at the revelation and look at the other children to see their reactions. So many little ones are reaching their hands to be hugged, patted, or just touched. They all talk at once, asking him questions and trying to get his attention. Little hands all around reaching and tugging at his free hand and patting his pillow-stuffed tummy.
“Where are your reindeer Santa?”
“Did you know I moved this year, Santa?”
“How did you get here before Christmas Santa?”
“You’re looking a little chubby Santa.”
The chatter and giggles slowly move away from the door towards an overstuffed chair placed next to a huge twinkling Christmas tree. The older ones stand back further, allowing the smallest to be close to Santa, but they too have a look of excitement on their faces. They smile and shrug at one another. Chloe is still hanging tightly onto Santa’s big arms. She spots her mom and waves and points to Santa. “Look who’s here momma! He’s finally here!” Chloe’s momma takes a picture and as she pulls the camera away I see her eyes shining with tears. I think to myself, she barely has the money to feed that little child, let alone make a good Christmas for her.
Santa finally makes it to the overstuffed chair and gently sets Chloe onto her feet. I can tell Dustin is burning up in his suit. His nose is damp and his eyeglasses are fogging over with body heat. I see his slanted eyes grinning through the mounds of fake white hair. It’s then I realize he’s enjoying this as much as the children! Chloe and the other children sit down at Santa’s feet, squirming to get as close as possible. As Santa sits down with a sigh our pastor stands next to Santa’s chair attempting to get everyone’s attention.
“Now children, I have some things I want to tell you before Santa starts handing out presents. We have one present for every child. It’s a present that’s been handpicked especially for you, by different people in our church. They have helped Santa get some of the gifts this year, since Santa is very busy. But Santa made a special trip to be with you and wish you a Merry Christmas.”
The children are sitting in rapt attention. Some are listening to Dr. Harbour, but others are just staring at the mound of red fuzziness in the chair. Either way, not a peep or wiggle from one child. They were being as good as possible with ol’ Saint Nick in the very same room as them!
“Before we pass out the presents I want you do to me a favor. Let’s all wait until everyone has a present before we open them. Once everyone has a present, we’re going to say a prayer to God thanking him for taking care of us and thanking him for everything He gives us. Okay?”
All the children either nod in agreement or voice their approval. One teenager sits with a small wiggling toddler in her arms. I can’t tell if it’s her sister or her own child, but when the other children responded to Dr. Harbour, she realized something was going on. She quit wiggling and sat quietly waiting to see what happened. Her little fingers were pulling at her mouth and drool was slowly running down her dimpled arm.
At this point, my elf partner and I begin handing wrapped gifts over to Santa. He calls the name of the child written on the gift card and as each child comes up, he ho-ho-ho’s and hugs them. Some children were too small or timid to get their gift, so some of the mothers accepted the gift on their behalf. You could see the fear in some of the littler faces faces. I don’t think they knew what to think of this loud happy man. He was probably pretty overwhelming! Other children could barely contain their excitement when their name was called. Squealing and tittering, they’d jump over the other children to get their gift. But with each name called out, I noticed something. Every single child responded with some form of thank you as they accepted their gift. One little chubby black boy, Freddie, said in his most formal voice, “Thank you sir.” Another little sandy blonde-haired boy with a big grin and lanky arms says, “Hey thanks man!”, which got a giggle from the audience. But I watched closely. Every child said thank you. And every child sat quietly with their gift until everyone else had theirs. Some kids shook their gifts, one little girl even tried to smell hers. But nobody tried to open them.
As we got towards the end of the stack of gifts, we realized that we were one gift short. One 10 year-old boy hadn’t had his name called out. He was the oldest of the four stair steps I noticed earlier in the pizza line. He smiled and looked at his younger brothers with their gifts.
“That’s okay. As long as they have theirs I’m okay.” He said with a calm and confident voice. “I’ll be okay without one.” I looked at my elf partner Ivy, and we both looked at each other in amazement. How old was this kid? His little soul was way older than his 10 years suggested. I looked at Lorraine/Mrs. Claus who had tears in her eyes. Jay the minister is frantically looking around wondering what went wrong. We had counted correctly hadn’t we? We’d checked the toy inventory several times! I watched it myself! A teenage boy with a deep voice stands up from the back of the room and offers his gift.
“Cody can have my present. It’s not fair that he should go without when his brothers have one. I really don’t need one. I have a job.” My heart is heavy and proud all at the same time. The room is quiet and dozens of eyes are focused on this gangly gracious teenager. He walks over to Cody and gives him the wrapped gift. Cody looks up gratefully and his little arms accept the box. "Thank you Evan."
Santa stood up and put his thumbs in his belt buckle. “Now, now, Evan. I don’t know if that’s necessary. Although, that’s mighty kind of you to be so giving. That is what Christmas is all about isn’t it kids? To give to others?” Dustin looks over at Lorraine with a questioning face. “Mrs. Claus, are you sure we got all the toys out of the sleigh? Wasn’t there another brown bag? I just know we had little Cody’s present earlier.”
Lorraine put on her best Mrs. Claus voice and said, “You know what dear, I think you’re right. We must have left it in the glove compartment. I know we had Cody’s present too.” She looks at our singles minister Jay and says, “Would you mind checking the sleigh for me? I just know we left it there on accident.” Jay jumps up and returns hurriedly to his office where we had stashed extra presents. He returns just a minute later with a wrapped box in hand. A huge smile of relief replacing the look of frantic worry.
“It must have fallen out of the bag. It was sitting in the middle of the hallway.” He hands the box to Santa and the room is full of smiling children again. As Santa stands up and walks towards the teenager, Evan, Dr. Harbour says a few words.
“Children I want you to remember something. There are two boys here that have done a really wonderful thing. We have been taught a lesson twice today. Cody didn’t have a present a minute ago, because his fell out of the bag back there. And he didn’t mind not getting one, because he saw that his brothers were taken care of and happy. When Evan realized there weren’t enough presents, he was nice enough to give his gift to Cody. He was willing to sacrifice his own present to make sure that another little boy had one." He paused for a breath. "Do you realize children what just happened? That is how we should all be towards one another. Loving, caring and happy when our loved ones are taken care of, even if that means sometimes we go without. Many times that’s what your mom’s and dad’s do for you. They want the best for you and are happy to go without in order for you to get what you need. Isn’t that nice of them. So let’s not forget what our mom’s and dad’s do for us, okay?" The children nodded and smiles at their parents. Dr. Harbour continued. "Let’s bow in prayer…
“Father, we come before you with grateful hearts. Grateful for these children and the wonder and excitement they remind us to live our lives with…”
As Dr. Harbour went into his prayer, I realized I had just learned a valuable lesson. It was about the true magic of Christmas. I realized that the magic of Christmas doesn’t have anything to do with toys or Santa or free pizza and cokes. I realized it didn’t have anything to do with how much money you could or could not spend on your loved ones. It had nothing to do with how many parties you were obligated to attend or where you traveled to celebrate. It didn’t even matter that I looked like an idiot with little pointy green booties on. But what did matter is that a roomful of people, children and adults, had just witnessed two beautiful examples of love and sacrifice. Not even sacrificing for anothers need, but for another person’s desire. We witnessed that what matters is our world is much nicer and lovelier when we give out of love and generosity…not obligation.
“…we thank you Lord for friends and family and this church. Because we realize that family isn’t always just our mom or our dad. That family consists of people around us that love us, whether we do good things or sometimes when we do bad things…”
And isn’t that the truth?
Happy Holidays everyone!
Andi