Christmas in an orphanage

There was much activity and excitement in the Children’s Home. The kind of thrilling excitement and atmosphere that pervades it perhaps a couple or so times during the year at Christmas, Vesak and the Sinhala and Hindu New Year.  

Christmas being essentially a children’s festival connected with the birth of the Christ Child, the connection with St Nicholas or Santa Claus bringing gifts for children is naturally appealing. The shops and pavements overflowing with toys, varieties of sweets, colourful trinkets and balloons, decorations and tinsel and baubles in eye-catching colours evoke an answering sparkle in the eyes of children. Children of all ages and sizes ranging from two-year-olds to fidgety twelve-year-olds frisked around blowing balloons, blowing bubbles, colliding with one another in joyous camaraderie; sharing gifts and other goodies that came their way in this annual splurge of people sharing their bounty with the less privileged. Screams of laughter and jollity reverberated in the merry atmosphere of the season; jaws moved sucking sweets munching biscuits and chocolates and chewing gum. It was heaven on earth for these orphaned children; orphaned for various reasons and finding companionship in their common predicament. 

Some forsaken by their unwed mothers. War orphans and innocent victims caught in the crossfire that ensued in the border villages in war time. Children given over for domestic work for parents to maintain themselves, grossly abused by their masters and mistresses and sent to the Home on court order. Children from broken homes having experienced the trauma of domestic violence. Alone in an infinitely unfriendly, pitiless world but for this haven. The caretakers looked on, sharing in the joy of their protégés on this eve of Christmas. They were all well into the mood of Christmas. In a corner stood a giant Christmas Tree, glittering in all its splendour, the magnanimity of yet another affluent donor.   

In the midst of all this jollity, a little girl of four or five years of age, a recent addition, sat apart. A rejected Teddy was at her side. She rejected offers of friendliness, scared by the noise around her and engrossed in a world of her own. Some of the children lit sparklers. Suddenly there was a powerful burst of crackers and there was a convulsive burst of hysterical screams from the little child. She screamed, running around in circles in sheer fright. She ran screaming into the night pursued by the girls who looked after the children. Having caught up with her, they coaxed her to enter the adjoining church to distract her. The now sporadic crackers brought on a convulsive shiver. Perhaps it was the effect of some traumatic incident she had experienced 
in her life. 

They took her to the crib prepared for the night’s celebration, pointing out Mother Mary and the other figures. Something clicked. This seemed somehow familiar to her. The semblance of a hut, cattle and a man and woman protecting their child. 

They were life-sized. Slipping down from the arms of the girl who carried her, she crept into the crib. She who had rejected the large teddy bear clutched the baby Jesus tight and huddled in the hay close beside Mary, her eyes closing due to the sheer exhaustion of her trauma, as though she had found the familiar surroundings she had been searching for since whatever traumatic experience she had faced in the village. This was home.