Christmas Spirit

It is an incident that comes to my mind as I decorate my Christmas tree every year on 25 December. The memory has been living with me for quite some time now, and springs up in my mind whenever I think of Christmas. The incident I am talking about dates back to the time when I was in VII standard. My aunt who stays in Calcutta had come to visit us with her kids, that is my cousins – Lalti and Raja. They were both young about 10 and 6 years old respectively. Unlike their previous visits this time they had come during the winter break and were supposed to stay with us during the Christmas celebration for the first time.

That morning I had come down just after decorating our Christmas tree to have ‘tea’. While munching on some home made cookies which my aunt had brought with her from Calcutta, I had a feeling that I was chewing slippers like our pet dogWoolfy. Once I was done with the exhausting chewing job, I picked up my cup of tea and slowly started moving towards the sink. When you are up to some mischief you always have this eerie feeling when you are about to do it and are scared that you might get caught. I had a similar feeling, but today it was stronger. The sink was about 10 steps away, but to reach the place I had to cross my aunt, duck behind her back and pour this cup into the sink! It might not appear scary to some people, but the additional information might help – she was as strict as Hitler and detested people who wasted food – and she considered ‘tea’ to be food. As soon as I took my first step towards the sink my cousin Lalti said “Didi”, I froze the moment I heard it, my face went blank for sometime. She continued speaking “Didi was talking about Santa Claus he comes here every year and gives them gifts!” My aunt interrupted her and said “There’s nothing like Santa Claus in reality.” Lalti persisted “No muma, he comes only to those houses where children decorate trees for him. It’s a signal for him to know that kids stay there and he gives them gifts!” My cousin brother Raja joined in too “Yes muma it’s true, they’ve shown us the gifts he gave them last year!” My aunt who had been listening so far said with a straight face “Oh so it’s for the gifts, look sona there’s no one like Santa Claus in this world. Your uncle and aunt buy gifts and keep them under the tree. I won’t waste any money on gifts, because of some stupid story that someone has told you.” I couldn’t believe m ears, my aunt just broke the loving bond I shared with a non existential Santa, off course I knew he did not exist but there are a lot of emotions attached to certain memories. Memories like waking up one morning to find a watermelon on the television, running in the whole house to find a hidden gift and at last finding it on the rooftop, finding a puppy near the gate – these memories even if not entirely true are so loving and endearing to you that parting with them on any account is very difficult.

My aunt was spoiling the ‘Christmas spirit’. I tried arguing with her, you can onlytry arguing with her as every argument leads to dead end sealed with her comment “I am elder to you.” I tried resurrecting the belief of my cousins in Santa, but now it was difficult to do a lot had been spoken about. I felt exhausted, drained off all my energy, vitality and happiness, was it really Christmas today? With all these thoughts I glanced at my cup, oh I had been sipping tea all this while unaware! My parents and my elder sister – who had been watching all this – started laughing. After all I had finished my cup of tea that I was planning to dispose off in the sink. This was no less a miracle to happen that day. I joined them in their laughter, and in our laughter remains the ‘spirit of Christmas’. It remains with us no matter how hard others try to break it.