Christmas is over which for my job
means I can finally take some time to share my gratitude with all who played a
part in this Christmas. This was my
fourth Christmas working at the Children’s Home and has been my favorite one to
this point. This is not because I love
these kids any differently than the kids in the past but because this year
there were so many special, magical memories made for these kids. They say a picture is worth a thousand
words. If I could show you all pictures of
some of the best moments I would, but I cannot (and if I did I would lose my
job and I like my job), so all I can share are my words, and it may take a
thousand! Somehow amidst the chaos,
anxiety, and overall excitement there were so many beautiful moments and I want
to share a few of those.
There were six residents this year
who still believed in Santa Claus. So,
with threats to all the other children in place, our goal was for those six to
still believe in Santa at the end of Christmas.
The kids all give me a Christmas list in October so I know what they
want for Christmas, easy enough right.
All we had to do was gift the items to the residents with a tag from
Santa and we are good to go. Wrong. Here’s what I learned, children tell Santa
different things then what they put on their Christmas list! So, when I took some of them to see the “real
Santa” one of my sweet girls decided to whisper to Santa that she wanted a
Polar Express Bell. Not just a jingle
bell but a real Polar Express
Bell. And this happened five days before
Christmas. To be honest, finding a Polar
Express Bell that close to Christmas with all the other things I had to do just
probably wasn’t going to happen. But we
have a wonderful staff member who just was not going to let this Christmas wish
go unanswered. She searched high and low
and of course the closest Polar Express Bell was in Alabama. And as God would line it up, she just happened
to be spending the weekend with her family in Alabama and was able to get the
one Polar Express Bell in the Southeast United States. I attached a special note from Santa and our
sweet girl woke up on Christmas morning with wonderful gifts to open and play
with and a gift she requested that told her that she was special. And, the first thing she told me about when I
saw her after Christmas was not all the toys she received but about Santa
bringing her a special bell.
When we went to visit this real
Santa he had them build a toy car that they would give to someone else to teach
them that Christmas is more about giving then receiving. So after a morning full of fun on the way
home we were discussing who they would give their cars to and they were tossing
around different people that really mattered to them. One of the girls decided that she would give
hers to Mrs. Alice because she just thought it was so nice of her to line up
our trip to see Santa and because “she is special” which melted my heart but
they didn’t stop there. One of our VP’s
at Central Office, Chris Hobbs, has a train set and asked that on our way back
I let the kids come in and see it. When we
were looking at the train set they were doing their best to behave (they know
the drill) and be sweet all while having fun playing with a ridiculously cool
train set. After about the 5th
time one of the girls had knocked the train off the track and with his phone
ringing off the hook, I started to prepare them to leave so Chris could get
back to work before they tore the place a part.
But, despite the fact that he probably had a million things to do, he
insisted that we let them play more. And
he calmly continued to show this little girl how to put the train back on the
track for the 6th time. While
he was explaining to her how it worked she interrupted him and said “I want to
give you this” and pulls out her little toy car. I of course started crying because he had no
idea what that meant. To this little
girl he had suddenly become someone that mattered to her; he became someone
special all by playing trains. Her
little heart wanted to do something nice for him like he was doing for her and
all she had to offer was a little toy car.
But she offered and he accepted and made her feel like she had offered
him the very best gift in the entire world.
After our “play with trains” moment
the children became obsessed. So, we had
to of course watch Polar Express. I
decided to do a Polar Express night and let them wear their PJ’s and come drink
hot cocoa and snuggle up and watch a movie.
I should have probably though this through a little more than I did but about
20 minutes into it I was regretting this decision. There had been five spilt cups of cocoa, two
major messes to clean up, an almost fight, and three children crying because
they burned themselves and we hadn’t even started the movie yet! But this was on the night of the monsoon and
I knew there was no sending them back into the rain without seeing this
movie. So we declared a no more walking
with hot chocolate rule and started the movie.
And I immediately remembered why I did it. They curled up with blankets and the room for
the most part went silent. I gave them
all teddy bears which seems ridiculous considering that the average age is
about 15 but it turned out to be exactly what they wanted. They curled up with their bears tight to
their chests (even the boys) and watched a movie. At one point I just stopped and looked
because from the outside I’m sure we would have looked crazy, a bunch of
teenagers curled up watching Polar Express with teddy bears and with big messes
on the floor. But in that moment I
watched a lot of kids with no normal in their lives just be happy. I watched them get into the magic of it all with
the little kids as they helped tell stories of how Santa can get in and leave
toys and how he knows when they’re sleeping and for a moment they were all just
kids. So with some minor adjustments
this will be a new tradition for Christmas at GBCH because they all deserve a
moment to just be kids.
One resident that we had this
Christmas had never had a real Christmas with gifts under the tree if there was
even a tree at all. In fact, we had to
help him write his Christmas list because he had never written one and all he
could think to put were sodas and snacks.
Once we had a list I was determined that he was going to have everything
on that list (and hopefully more… we had a lot to make up for!) And, thanks to
the generosity of wonderful sponsors that is exactly what happened. For all of our residents. They woke up on Christmas morning and under
their tree were stacks of gifts with their name on it. And when they opened those gifts it wasn’t
generic toys or things they didn’t want, it was exactly what they had asked
for. Someone had cared enough to take
what they asked for and go buy exactly that.
This may just be the way Christmas works for some people but for kids
who can’t have what they want (a family or to be at home) this little fact
speaks volumes. Whether they believe it
was from Santa or from a sponsor, it expresses even if just for a moment that they
are worthy of nice things and that they are not whatever society or their
family has spoken over them, instead they are loved. And they are remembered.
So for everyone who had any hand in
Christmas at the Children’s Home this year, I want to say thank you. Whether you helped buy presents for one or
several residents, came and helped wrap into the night and insisted that they
all have cute bows, sent gift cards so we could make sure each child felt
special and none felt left out, or maybe you said an extra prayer that they
could all make it through this Holiday season with joy, thank you. Thank you for giving them a childhood memory
to look back on and smile. Thank you for
not forgetting about these residents.
Thank you for remembering them and loving them.
