Once upon a time, there lived a little girl with sunshine in her eyes & laughter in her voice. It was a Christmas Eve & the little girl Anna was busy making a handmade Christmas card for her best friend. Crayons & coloured bits of paper lay scattered around her. She drew a cheerful, colourful Santa Claus on the card & sloppily sprawled “Merry Christmas” across it…. From where she sat , she could hear the clutter of vessels from the kitchen, where her mother was baking her favourite fruit cake. She sneaked in there to check out the status-quo of the cakes. To her disappointment, her mom was still mixing the batter & the cakes were yet to be baked. Unnoticed by her mom, she dipped her fingers into the creamy batter & licked it gleefully…
Then she ran off towards the window, impatiently waiting for the local church group to visit her home. Outside in the chilly night, she could feel the magic of Christmas in the air. The glowing red star & bunch of balloons that hung on the branches of the gulmohar, wavered in a cold gush of gale. She wished it would snow in India, like it did in those European post cards she admired so much. Waiting on the window sill, she must have dozed off somewhere in between. She could see herself making a real snow man & having snowball fights with her friends. She could hear the jingling of sleigh bells, and the clatter of reindeer hooves on snow…. The strains of carol woke her up. At last the church group had arrived, singing carols & frolicking away. Anna was on cloud nine seeing the bulky Santa dancing, with his wobbling stomach, funny long beard & masked face. She was utterly delighted when he took her hand & made her dance with him. Then he gave her toffees & went away…………
That was years back. Little Anna has grown up. Sending xmas cards is no longer in her busy agenda, let alone a hand made one. Neither does she write any long personal letters. Sitting in her cubicle, the only letters she write are the brisk, professional emails she send to her colleagues seated just yonder her . Cakes are no longer a Christmas extravagance for her. She devours yummy pastries often at parties and then ends up dieting the rest of the week. She shrugs and then laughs off seeing the funny Santa, with that silly looking plastic mask. Anna still religiously attends the midnight mass & celebrates Christmas. But the magic has been lost, somewhere along those years of growing up .
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