Christmas Memories from the Catalog of Good Deeds: “Christmas Parcels from Abroad for Sunday School Students”

 

There are lots of people for whom Christmas means a warm family reunion and sweet memories. You know, those memories that return when we go to the attic or the basement and open a box filled with old letters, photos, and other little things that we cherish. My box contains a metal bell with battered ornament, a wooden reindeer, and a glass ball with snow. These objects bring back my childhood memories of Christmas.

 

My family went to a parish, which cooperated with a US-based charity. The charity sent us a parcel with lots of gifts for the most fantastic children’s holiday one year. All the gifts were in paper-wrapped boxes. The parcel came a couple of weeks before Christmas, so the colorful skyscrapers made of gift boxes stood in the Sunday School auditorium waiting for the holiday.

There was a Liturgy and a solemn meal on January 7, and after that, all Sunday School students received their gifts. The rustling paper was unwrapped with caution, and the students opened their boxes, anxious to find out what was inside. The gifts were different but no matter what you found in your box, it felt like a treasure: color pencils, postcards, notebooks, and knitted scarves. The children’s faces were shining as the kids unpacked their gifts, discussed them, exchanged the toys, and ran to show them to their parents. It seems that the gift boxes, packed with warmth and care, contained more than just presents. They had sincere hearts of caring people inside. 

I keep opening that box every year before Christmas and thank again the wise people who, in spite of all their busyness and hassle of our times, found some time to send us Christmas in a box.