Hey, hey, ho, ho

Can it possibly be halfpast November? What the heck happened to September and October? What happened to those two months, seriously. I think it’s too early to get into the Christmas mood, heck, it’s barely even cold outside. Yet the parades are on the horizon and retailers have busted out the glitter, tinsel and faux evergreens and are busily putting Christmas on their shelves. If you know me, and many of you do, my little family doesn’t Christmas shop. We Christmas make/craft/ bake/brew/knit/sew, but we don’t buy and give manufactured/finished products. Nope, no ready-made happens at our house at Christmas. But, we do buy our “raw materials” as locally as possible.

Actually, until about a decade ago, Christmas wasn’t my favourite time of the year. I had stopped believing in the magic of Christmas the day my older sisters filled me in on what was being hidden in the back of our parents’ linen closet. There they were, a mountain of presents, wrapped and tagged weeks before Christmas Eve. I was about seven years old when the world of toy-making elves, flying reindeer and the Jolly Old Fellow became just stories in books. What the H E double crusted mincemeat pie was Christmas all about, anyway? As a parent of youngsters, I played the game of Christmas for years with my family. And by the time my kids had grown and gone their own way a brand new kinda Christmas stress began the moment the shopping malls cranked up “seasonal instrumentals.” Festive, piped-in, music was meant to put us in the mood, but at the first Fa La La La La, a grey cloud followed me around from one shop to the next.

One day good friend Susan more or less hinted I could share a moment of my precious time to help with the local CAS Angel Campaign. She had made it sound like it could be fun. She even made it sound as if I might feel better about Christmas if I changed my focus just a smidgeon. Ho Ho Ho. I won’t say it was a Christmas miracle, or I heard the tinkle of a silver bell, but the first time I helped out at the Angel Office, I didn’t have time to whine about the sham, I felt, the holiday had become for me. No time. When I wasn’t working at my parttime paying job, I tried to get out to the Angel Office. Susan needed warm bodies to physically sort and pack hundreds of gifts earmarked for deserving children in the County. Susan Rose, the Chief Angel, had a huge list and every day she checked it twice, sometimes three or four times. I got to be an Elf, and assistant to the Angel of the Angel Campaign. I spent few hours a week, in the five weeks leading up to Christmas, sorting, packing, wrapping, stacking and making sure every child on the list had something great to wake up to on Christmas morning. The Angel Boss and the Elf Helpers were often invited to lunches and meetings to tell the story of the CAS Angel Campaign to local organizations and businesses and ask for their financial assistance.

You may have heard me say this before, I’ll say it again—I wasn’t prepared for what really happened to me a decade ago in the CAS Christmas Angel zone. I stopped believing in the fairy tale existence of Santa and became a Santa who met generous, caring Santa Clauses everyday from the middle of November until Christmas week. The CAS Angel workshop wasn’t anything like Santa’s workshop of movies and books. In borrowed accommodations, the County workshop was, by times, dark, cramped, cold and industrial, a veritable ocean of cardboard boxes, each box with a child’s name on it and “gift statistics” for dozens of County children. Those boxes were lined up on the floor in alphabetic order awaiting the kindness of individuals, businesses and organizations. I soon knew all about the heavy lifting and how cold the workshop in the “borrowed headquarters” could become and how many desperate parents/grandparents/ caregivers we would meet in a day. Parents and caregivers with only enough money for the everyday basics and not enough for Christmas stopped in for a bit of magic.

In a caring community like Prince Edward County, the opportunities to become the Santa (the one you knew you could be) are all around us. Like it or not, it’s only a few weeks until Christmas. Think about making a donation to the Food Bank in Picton or the Storehouse Foodbank in Wellington. Shop for a CAS Angel. Drop a buck or two or 10 in the Salvation Army Kettle. Buy a Christmas tree from the Picton Fire Hall and support their great causes.

The Santa of fable and fairytales brought gifts to every kid, no matter what. In real life, real people are Santa Claus.

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca