Siblings fight, especially when they are young with an age difference of a little over two years. We won’t go into the psychology of all that. My two daughters, if pushed and under certain circumstances, will admit they love each other. Most times however they are not pushed and the right circumstances are rare or rather go unnoticed. Two years ago the older of the two was already too old not to be skeptical about Santa Claus. The younger, now 10, still entertains conviction.
Two years ago, that is in December 2011, returning home
after visiting their cousins, the little girl blurted out, ‘I know what kind of
pet I want!’ The rest of the family knew
what was coming for her cousins had just acquired a pet rabbit. We didn’t exactly roll our eyes but glances
were exchanged.
She is a planner. A
month before she had got me to buy her mother a birthday present: a Christmas
tree. We went to Nuwara Eliya just
before Christmas. She knew we would be
retuning on the 26th. She wrote a wish-list to Santa and left it
under the tree. Yes, ‘rabbit’ was
included but only after saying a lot of sweet things to Santa, inquiring after
his health and commiserating with him for the difficulties of delivering Christmas
presents. She left some biscuits too and
included the fact in her ‘Santa Note’.
Our friend didn’t live in Nuwara Eliya. She grew vegetables in a 60 acre plot of land
in Rambodawatte, 3km from the main road.
There was enough space for kids and adults to run around. Silence.
Just the vegetable plots, the surrounding hills and the jungle beyond
the fence. At one point a laborer called
out to my older daughter. There was a
baby rabbit scurrying around the carrot plots.
Not the white, furry kind her sister wanted for a pet but still a
rabbit; brown, small and utterly cuddly.
She tried to catch it but failed.
The laborer smiled and caught it for her. She held the creature in her
hands and tucked it under her T-shirt ‘to keep it warm’. I told her that the little rabbit must be
terrified and to let it go.
‘I want to show it to Dayadi,’ she said. Dayadi, the rabbit-lover, was naturally
thrilled. It was not the Santa Claus
gift she wanted, but still. A few
minutes later they let the creature go.
It was late when we left Rambodawatte. The little girl was so exhausted, she fell
asleep before we got to even Gampola. We
stopped to drop off a friend in Mawanella, but she didn’t get down. She got up only when we reached home. She ran inside the house and to the Christmas
tree. I was still outside. She ran out
of the house exclaiming, ‘Appachchi, it’s true, it is really true!’
‘What’s true, baby?’
‘Santa! He’s
real!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He came. He wrote me
a letter!’
‘Really?’
She showed me. Her
sister had got our friend in Mawanella to write it down when we dropped her
home. I already knew, but played the
surprised and ‘as excited father’.
‘Santa’ had thanked her for her letter and responded to her cordial
queries with cordiality of his own. He had apologized for not getter her a
rabbit, explaining that the rabbit’s mother, father, brothers and sisters would
feel sad if he took the little one away from them. It was a ‘gift’ more precious than a rabbit,
her shining eyes told me.
This morning she came to me and spoke about that
Christmas. She is older, as old as her
sister was when she played ‘Santa’.
‘Did you write that letter?’
‘Which letter?’
‘The one that Santa kept under the Christmas tree?’
‘No,’ I said truthfully.
I gathered that the illusion had run its course without any
discernible scars. It is unlikely that
she will read this account before she is old enough to smile about the entire
incident.
Siblings quarrel.
They also love. They take. They give.
They are magicians too. They can
conjure up Santa Claus. They can be
Santa if and when they want. They are
such miracle makers.
Yes, I believe in Santa Claus, simply because I believe in
children and I, like they, believe in love.
msenevira@gmail.com
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