SANTA CLAUS AND GIFTS

Santa Claus and Gifts

"Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way;

Santa Claus is coming around driving on a sleigh"

Christmas. The English festival which is celebrated every year with equal zest & enthusiasm in India. Every year during Christmas, shopping malls are decorated with goodies, sporting huge Christmas trees. Shops are full of various Santa masks, frills, bells & scarfs. Cake shops are filled with aromas of plum cakes &  rum cakes. The roads are bright with a lot of red & green everywhere around. People get home Christmas trees, & decorate it with all the beautiful cutest things possible. 

& then, the best part happens. Santa comes around with a sack full of gifts! 

Gifts are exchanged. Secret Santa's are done & the Christmas day becomes an even more merrier day.

As a child, I was always fascinated with the concept of Santa Claus. I used to diligently hang up socks on Christmas eve on my main door & wake up super excited the next morning. & then I would run around the entire house trying to find out my gift which Santa had hidden away somewhere very smartly. & then!!!!! I would find it!!!!! Trust me, the happiness of receiving a gift from Santa was always a hundred million times more than getting gifts from anybody, ever. & somehow magically Santa always knew what I would love the most as my gift.

I remember that once I was visiting  my Maasi during Christmas & wasn't going to be home that night. So I had called up my dad & told him to hang up socks- back home. & just to be sure that Santa doesn't miss me by any chance (what if he checks whether I am in there & then not finding me, decides to not give me a gift?!), so I hung up a sock at my Maasi 's place as well. The next day, the usual course followed. I zoomed around & found out that Santa had left a greeting card for me! & it read "Ho Ho Ho Gauri. I have left your gift at your home!! Merry Christmas! Yours, Santa Claus". 

I was so happy!! Santa Claus had written a card for me in his big-just-like-him handwriting- imagine my happiness! (oh yes, I really believed Santa had written that letter to me!) 

& yes, he actually had left a gift for me back home too!

I faintly remember, once I had gotten into an argument with a friend over Santa's existence & his giving gifts. When she did not believe my words & instead said "arre pagal. Wo Santa nahi deta. Wo toh mummy pappa gift rakhte hai"; I so hated her that moment & told her that she was lying. Finding no other valid argument to prove my belief in the existence of Santa, I just dropped a line saying that Santa gave gifts only to good children.

Once I had asked mom when does Santa exactly come? Over which she told me that Santa comes late at night when all the kids are sleeping. 

"Can anybody see him?", was my next question. 

"Yes. If you are awake, you can see him when he comes here to keep your gift."

Feeling excited about getting to see Santa, I declared that I would stay awake that night, as long as it would be. & I started imagining meeting Santa, talking to him, hugging him-all with sparkling eyes. But alas, being a kid of 7,  I feel asleep very soon. & my dream of meeting Santa was drowsed down by heavy sleep.

When I was in 5th std, I woke up on Christmas morning with the similar zest. I had stuck up the socks as always & was anxious for receiving my gift. I zoomed around the house for 10 minutes but couldn't find my gift. After searching every nook & corner, I realized there was no gift this year. I started crying uncontrollably. Over which, Mom dad said in a monotone that "Arre Santa Claus gives gifts to small children. You are a grown up kid now. How can he gift you?" 

Over which I wailing replied "I am still a small kid. I want my gift. This is not fair!!" Mom dad tried to console me, but last what I remember blurting out was "I hate Santa!", furiously.

Though it was all momentary in the sadness of not being Santa's good child anymore & though I never hung up socks on any Christmases again, I still do love Santa & Christmas. And even though I do know now who the Santa really was always, I still love to believe it was actually Santa Claus. Santa Claus who came down on his Reindeer's singing "Jingle bells" every Christmas night, checked if there was a socks hanging, magically got in through the tiny gap in the door or an open window, & left a gift very lovingly. Santa, the old fat chubby white-bearded man who loved good obedient & well behaved children & who actually took efforts to make gifts in his gift factory as per each child's choice. The warm loving Santa.

 \

I remember as a child I used to make up lists of what I wanted for Christmas. Every year the list changed. It would be anything from a new video game to a new puzzle; a new dress to a new mug; a new comic to a new hat; a new doll to some chocolate- any random thing. & I was always ardently happy with what I got.

Today as I write this, I wonder if I had to make a list for Santa; what would that include? Definitely not dolls or chocolates. For if given a wish now, I know not to waste it over things like these. In childhood, those were the biggest wishes,giving the biggest joys. But today, really?

Why not try it out. So here, let me make a list of my wishes. & as Santa needs to know your true exact wishes, otherwise he cannot fulfill them, lets be very honest. 

Here it goes:-

1. Happiness & Satisfaction

2. Peace

3. True friends

4. Good Health for all my loved ones

5. ......

Oh well. So basically I want a very few things, & well, things that cannot be bought. Happiness, satisfaction, well being... Can Santa give it to me? I guess not. But we can always hope he could. Like really Santa, its fine if you can't put it in a nice box & wrap it with your glitzy paper. Really, fine! But just give these to me!

Jokes apart,but that's how it is. The older you grow, the shorter your list for Christmas becomes. Because the things you want, cannot be bought with money. The things you want, cannot be really showered onto you. As kids, we would have found it hilarious if we ever saw "good friends" on somebody's Christmas list. But now, we do know the importance & the bleakness it now has attained. The things you want are no longer so simple as to put them in boxes & present them to you. Wish it really was that simple!

Well well. It's Christmas. A festival of happiness & love. A festival of sharing & caring. So lets just make our Christmas lists for Santa- whatever they may be & hang up socks with the same genuine hopes that we did as kids. Who knows, Santa might really show up & gift us in galore!

A very berry Merry Christmas to all! 

Hope Santa fulfills all your wishes! *wink wink*

(P.S. Dear Santa, if you cannot give me my these wishes (fulfilled), &if its really like you gift only able-to-buy kind of gifts, I would be fine with a Jimmy Choo as well ;) )