“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.” Espousing this opening line of Little Women, we the maddies of Divine Home, Trivandrum decided to celebrate Christmas with the kids inculcating all its nuances; be it the presents or the Santa Claus. To our surprise and joy, the children of playschool “Friends” brought a lot of goodies as Christmas presents for our kids. (Thanks to fellow maddie Anoosha whose aunty owns the playschool.) The gifts varied from a brand-new frock (which went to the cutie pie Kesiya) to coloring books, sketch pens and what not!

After a mad scramble to get the costume of Santa Claus and the cake, we reached Divine Home to be welcomed by the beaming faces of our cherubs:) The excitement and elation that oozed from their faces on seeing us heightened, when we started playing musical chair .With all the spirits of a game they went around the chairs, some of them even dancing to the tune of latest hit song “daddy mummy”! Since it was taking aeons for the Santa Claus to get ready and most of the volunteers were busy helping him, the rest of us had the hectic task of controlling the naughtiest bunch of kids. Most of our kids are very small, K.G. to second standard kids forming the majority and to quote our VP HR Keerthi who’s teaching in another shelter home, “Kids shouldn’t be this small!!!”

The children scurrying to make it to the musical chair.

YIPEE!! I got my chair!

Arjun desperately trying to control the kids while Robin cheekily retorts

It was time for the grant entry of the Santa Claus bagged with all the goodies. Our jovial Christmas papa aka Ganesh came hopping in sans the sleigh. The exuberant happiness of the kids on seeing the Christmas father was palpable from the way they all swarmed near him, tugging at his robe, trying to get a handshake and pulling at hisbeard to take the mask off. And yes! He was welcomed with a chorus of jingle bells . But to our dismay Kesiya and Diana, two of the little ones we have there were so scared on seeing Santa that they started crying. Nothing we said pacified them. So finally, our dear Santa Claus had to take the mask off. Pronto! We got their smiling faces back again. The already brightened up faces became even more lit on seeing the yummy cake. Even we the volunteers had a hard time keeping our hands off it and the rest of us had to practically cajole Arjun and Shasta to prevent them from attacking the cake! Luckily, the cake was big enough to feed all and the kids got at least two pieces.

Yummy yummy cake!

The picture speaks for itself

If you thought getting gifts from Santa was easy, then you are wrong! You have to ask Santa a question before you get the gifts. But our kids are way too smart.They all had something to ask Santa, even the unusually quiet ones in class. To actually witness the true joy in the heart of a kid reflected on his face, observe them while he opens his gift-the one face of his that you will never find fading in oblivion. The kids who got puzzles started doing it then and there. Ranjith and Kesiya adorned themselves in their new dresses. The rest of them were excitedly showing their gifts to us. It was certainly a moment to cherish.

The jovial papa

… and his alter-ego!

Christmas celebrations are never complete without the Carole songs and our kids are not far behind in this also. “I like to be a Christmas tree…” they sang in unison along with actions, with a little help from us volunteers (they couldn’t contain the excitement which in turn made them forget the lines in between).

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…