Santa Claus Fund is all about children
Star readers, this is your moment to help kids get the surprise of their lives
“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” Michael Bublé sings. Well, not really, Michael, we’ve been preoccupied.
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” sing a lot of people, mainly Andy Williams. No, December has been one of the worst months of 2020 so far. Job losses. Shops shut. Restaurants closed. Hospitals full. Grandma and Grandpa alone.
“Last Christmas I gave you my heart. The very next day, you gave it away,” sings Wham. What? That’s what you call a Christmas song?
All these songs share a theme. As you’ll have noticed — and I hope you did — they’re all about grown-ups. We adults may have our problems, but they’re the kind we can deal with because we’re big and tall and we know stuff.
Like how to take care of little children, with their small, sweet faces, their tender sensibilities, the funny way they see the adult world and their habit of thinking the absolute best of every adult they encounter, including teachers, police, doctors, crossing guards, principals and, most of all, parents.
Christmas is all about children. These are the very people we fail. They can’t be shielded from Christmas news, holiday spirits, the winter solstice or whatever their parents are celebrating. They know Dec. 25 is a special day, that Santa has been working all year in his busy workshop, and there should be presents under the tree.
Maybe it will be a great gleaming heap, but this year maybe not. It might be one or two. Adults might hope the imaginations of little children expand enough to glory in pretty much anything, but in the modern world, little kids have become more sophisticated. They know what Christmas should be, and they know when Mommy and Daddy have let them down. And that’s when the Toronto Star Santa Claus Fund steps in.
Star readers, this is your moment. This will be the morning when a shy child, a little boy with a stutter, a little girl going to school with a stained sweatshirt and leggings that aren’t washed as often as they could be, or six-year-old twins new to Canada who can’t read English well, are going to get the surprise of their tiny, hopeful, trusting lives.
They’re going to get Christmas presents! They’re going to feel part of that secret club called Kid World, when children play with things and see what Santa Claus decided when he checked off his list: “Hmmm, this child has been very nice. Lots of presents here!”
Innocent children don’t know that with the Santa Claus Fund, naughty children get presents, too. We Star readers are like that. They get toys, clothes, games, art supplies, all the things tossed carelessly on the floor in a more cheerful household but are particularly treasured in homes that are silent and full of pain this cold Christmas.
On Christmas, we care about these tiny loving little kids who did nothing to deserve what COVID-19 meted out. So we’ll protect them from the bad news with plenty of wrapped Christmas gifts under the tree, however straggly or plastic or non-existent a tree it is.
When all this began, I warned people that they would be judged on how well they coped with hard times this year. Were you kind? Patient? Thoughtful? Assess yourself. How awful were you? The way to repair your self-esteem is to give generously to the Santa Claus Fund and on Christmas morning, recite out loud,
“Say I’m weary, say I’m sad, Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add, Jenny kissed me, so I blew all my money
On the Santa Claus Fund Because one day Jenny and I might need some help With our little ones too.” (Apologies to poet Leigh Hunt)