What is it about Christmas that just gives all of us that urge to want to start humming Christmas carols in the middle of the day? Or makes us feel childishly happy, even though there may be no reason for it? This year around Christmas seems to have just sprung on us earlier than usual, with shops decorating their premises, sales being advertised, and people making plans for those precious few days off.
Travelling on the roads of Colombo, it is very easy to come across some hoarding or some kind of advertisement to make sure we all know the holiday season is nearing.
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I was in the bus a few days back and had just passed a popular retail store in Colombo which had already put up its Christmas decorations, when a young mother and her daughter got in. They were obviously trying to beg for money from the passengers, a common site in any public transport system in this country. So the mother started her story (all of them have a story!) about how she has cancer, how her husband left her
for another woman, how she has no energy to work and so she is asking for some assistance from us. I do not know if her story was true.
I do not know if she was using someone else’s story to beg for money so that she could earn a quick buck. But what I did think about was – what does Christmas mean to her? To that little child who could have been no more than two years old, stretching her hand out to each passenger, pleading with her eyes that we give her at least 5 rupees? Do they feel that same happiness I do when I think of Christmas? Is there something magical in the air for them during this season?
Each of us reading this is lucky – we are lucky to have eyes to see; lucky to have a mind that works rationally which processes the words we read; lucky to have the luxury to be able to enjoy a lazy Sunday reading the newspaper at home. But how many thousands of children, young people and elderly are out there in our own neighbourhoods who cannot do the same thing? How many of them have we passed in our daily lives, too busy to stop and take a moment to see if they need our assistance, if there is some tiny thing we could do to make their lives a little bit easier?
Christmas is magical; you and I know that. It is in our hands to make sure that feeling of enchantment is spread to all of them out there who may not have felt it so far. Do your bit – make someone feel special this Christmas and I can promise you, the feeling of happiness you have inside will just get better.
This column was written by a STITCH
volunteer. To learn more please visit www.stitchmovement.com
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