I fell in
love with Christmas when I was a kid. Sometimes I feel it appealed to me not
just because of the excitement but also because it was mysterious. Technically,
it wasn’t my festival. I am a Hindu. But I had seen a lot of Christmas in
London, and I was too young for my mother to explain that God was divided. So
she played along. For me, she had to bake a cake with snowy white icing, roast
a chicken stuffed with onion, bake potatoes and boil vegetables and make some
thick gravy too.
Meanwhile,
I was more than ready a week before Christmas with my miniature plastic pine
tree, little shiny balls and stars to hang on it and clean stockings to hang on
Christmas Eve. And I begged my mother for the cotton which would be my fake
snow. As I grew up my collection of decorations grew too, to my mother’s
consternation. Satin ribbons, shiny wrapping paper, with which I even wrapped a
few Alphabet blocks to put under the tree.
And at
night I would wait, for just a shuffle of clothing against the wall, a rustle
of plastic wrappers or a jingle of a reindeer bell. But I never heard anything!
I remember asking about how Santa would come to fill my stocking, since we didn’t
have a chimney. The answer I got was that Santa had a magical golden key which
could open any modern day door. The presents had to come, one way or another.
After I was
old enough to understand who the real Santa was, my enthusiasm didn’t ebb. I
just started thinking aloud what I wanted in my stocking, so that my parents
could hear it. I didn’t always get what I wanted but every Christmas morning my
heart surged happily when I saw the bulge in my stocking.
The bells
are jingling
Hail
Christmas morning
There is
magic in the air
And warmth
in the winter frost !
