Surprise !

Source: istockphoto

It was Christmas eve. All houses down the lane were studded with X'mas lights in their balconies. One couldn’t see many Christmas trees around here, Christians being scarce in the vicinity. In one of these homes were a little girl who found the absence of Christmas trees and Santa Clause deeply upsetting.
She wished for a Christmas like they showed in the movies; with all the gifts and surprises, get-togethers and decorations! She sure couldn’t do it all on her own. But she knew she at least had to try.

So here she was, peeping out the window to make sure her family wasn’t back from work yet. Rushing back to the bedroom, she sat sewing slim sponge slices into cones to make a tiny Christmas tree. She had all of half an hour every day to secretly make the gifts; when no one else was home. Couldn’t spoil the surprise now could she?

It was almost done by Christmas eve; a three layered thermocol Christmas cake for her mom, a snowman made of tissue paper for her dad, and that sponge X'mas tree for her sister.  A neat drawing, as she liked to believe, of Santa’s face was to be her mask. She’d also gotten a red top, red pants and a red belt ready. All that was left was to get a bag to tuck in the gifts and a tummy for Santa. That evening she tried stuffing every pillow in the house under her top. Sadly, all pillows were the size of her own torso and just wouldn’t stay. Much to her dismay, the tummy idea had to be chucked.

Finally, the D-day arrived. All set, she waited for her family to end up together in the living room, which proved to be a herculean task. She ended up dragging everyone into the same place in the name of a ‘something’ she couldn’t tell them. So much for a small surprise!

Keeping them put, she rushed ‘backstage’ to the bedroom and got dressed up in a jiffy. And off she went with a sweet and meek ‘Ho ho ho!’ that resembled nothing like a Santa’s laugh. But who cared after all, this was family. And surprised they were! Very pleased too, she could say. For they made her go back and come again so they could shoot a video of it and remember it forever.

Years later, she sat watching the video of once upon a time. Oh, the things they did as kids. She’d forgotten the last time she’d given such a surprise to her family. Had life kept her so very busy since then? Talk about resolutions and goals by the year’s end, now she had hers too. Pulling out her diary, she wrote it down,

“This holiday season I promise to give a surprise to my family.”

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