Santa's gift

Christmas is the season that honors the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. It is a fun filled & holy festival that's celebrated across the globe. The holiday season is characterized by church celebrations, late night masses, feasts, christmas trees, holly, mistletoes, gift giving and offcoursethe ever-so cuddly Santa Claus.

While the whole world is busy preparing for the holidays either by way of planning family trips ordeciding on the menu or carol singing, our dear Santa Claus is having a tough time. Since time immemorial,this plump, jolly, white-bearded man called Saint Nicholas has been assigned the daunting task of spreadinghappiness by satisfying everyone's materialistic demands by way of gifts. Only this time, things are a lil' different.

With the ongoing recession and climatic changes taking place all over, Santa is finding it reallyhard to cope up with things. Firstly, he's up north where the ice is melting uncontrollably and igloos arebecoming extinct. As a result, the sleigh manufacturers are shutting shop due to falling demand. Secondly,the dollar has shot up increasing prices of gifting supplies & also import costs. Lastly, with the exploding population, the North Pole Postal Agency which receives the letters for Santa from across theglobe are demanding higher compensation from Santa for having to work overtime. As a result, the demand/gift/materialistic list prepared by santa has run into so many pages that he has decided to outsourcesome other Santa's from different parts of the world to accomplish this seemingly impossible task.

Problems have compounded for poor Santa as the demands made by children and adults alike have been showing a'trend-upheaval'over the past years. While demand for simple toys, games and books have considerably gone down, the demand for snazzy gizmos like mobile phones, ps3's, iPods and robots have increased exponentially! This isweighing down heavily on Santa who has budget constraints. To add to his woes, this year Santa has received severalletters and requests which have left him dumbfounded. A boy from the U.S. of A wants to be part of the Obama administration so that atleast he and his family don't have the fear of being laid-off in the economic downturn. The boy urges Santa to fulfill his request by ending his letter with the words- 'YES YOU CAN' in true Obama style. A young girl from the middle east wants to marry the guy who threw his shoes on Bush while a kid from Afghanistan wants that very shoe! As though this was not enough, a Japanese couple has sent in a request demanding a miracle torevive their economy. To top it all, an Indian kid wants to lay his hands on Dawood Ibrahim! I really pity Santa...

But the good samaritan that Santa is, he somehow managed to arrange for the weird materialistic and self-centered demandsmade by mortals all over. On Christmas eve, Santa with all his elves has set up a 'happiness laden train' of his own sleighs (and some rented) to form something a little less longer than the Great wall of China. As he is about to set off for what might be his longest excursion, in comes one last request. Its from a young girl who lives in a distant land. She has just mentioned her address and wants to meet Santa once. Thats it! "NO gift?", exclaimed Santa with shock and surprise. Being unable to decline this mysterious but simple request, Santa decided to oblige and keep it for the end. He finally sets off.

First stop was obviously the U.S.A. which made utmost use of technology to contact Santa. He went from state to state in a flash dropping by the chimneys and filling the stockings with gifts. Some were sweet in leaving behind cakes and eastereggs but being overweight, Santa would carry them for his elves. He flew over New York where he heard a guy called EMINEM sing 'will the real santa please stand up, please stand up' in front of a huge crowd of santa wannabe's. Gosh, he didn't seem amused. The other outsourced Santa's also bumped into him over Europe and some gifts got exchanged by mistake addingto the delay. To the weird demands made by people wanting the 'shoe' or the 'obama' kid, Santa politely dropped in anexciting gadget to divert their attention from their dreamy wants.

It was all finally over when Santa took a break atop Mt. Everest. He could picturize the entire globe enjoying and derivinghappiness from materialism. He began thinking how people were finding happiness externally when true happiness was right within them. He was mulling over the varying definitions of happiness that people had coined but how he strongly believed thatall seasons are beautiful for the person who carries happiness within. All of a sudden, he remembered the girl. He quickly left.

Upon arrival at the address, all he saw was an open lawn with a solitary christmas tree and a lit candle on a box at the bottom. Beside it was a girl dressed in a dingy frock (in all probability, the girl who wrote the letter to meet Santa). Looking at Santa alight from his sleigh, the girl ran towards him and hugged him tight without saying a word. The girl was overjoyed at the sight of Santa who hugged her too as tears of happiness rolled down her eyes. "What happened child? Whyare you alone on this holy evening and why did you want to meet me? Why don't you want a gift?" The girl still not being able to contain her joy spoke in a tone that moved Santa. "I am from a simple family and my parents have to toil very hardeveryday to afford a good meal. Despite this, we are all happy as we never sleep hungry. My parents tell me that unlike others,we are extremely lucky people as we get a gift everyday from you in the form of good food and a roof to cover oursleves. Somedays ago, for the first time my daddy got me a box of chocolates. I was overjoyed. My mother told me its a christmas gift from Santa and said that I should be thankful to you. I see others get big & colorful presents for christmas everytime. Some are happy for the moment while some are not. But I am always happy as I get a gift everyday from you. I don't want any other gift that keeps me happy for only some time as I have all the precious gifts I need to live life happily forever. So I just wanted to meet you and thank you for everything that you have given us."

As she said this, she picked up what looked like a small box from the bottom of the christmas tree. "Thank you Santa!", the girl said handing the box to the teary-eyed Santa. He opened the box and broke into a smile as he saw the chocolates in there with a friendship band with the words 'santa's gift' written in an untidy script. She tied it around Santa's wrist. "This friendship band is for you to thank you for always keeping me happy. I want to share the chocolates with you so that you can be a part of my happiness." This was the first time Santa had received a gift from someone who had never asked for one. It was the first time that someone had expressed immense gratitude for the simple gifts of life for which even Santa wasn't responsible.

Santa was touched by this affable gesture. He knew that the girl would develop into being a wise human being for whomhappiness meant to love, to be loved and to be thankful for every minute of this precious gift of life. The only thing he could give the girl was his word that he would celebrate every christmas with her. The childs joy knew no bounds as both the emotional souls bid each other good-bye only to meet next christmas.

The girl had the best christmas ever and knew that she was not alone on this holy day. For Santa, it was the happiest day of his life as he had finally unravelled the true definition of happiness from a girl who had also given him his first- 'santa's gift'

"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."

If you like this post, please feel free to comment below and write your thoughts on 'happYness' to share a happy moment with the world. You can also pass on this post to others you want to share the happiness with by clicking on the envelope icon below.

Merry Christmas Everyone! Be Happy.

25-12-08
-Varun Thakur