THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT

It was half-past eleven at night when Jennifer finished wrapping the last of the multitudinous presents surrounding her. Her entire room was a mess, except for the presents—neatly wrapped and decorated with pretty Christmas embellishment that would light up every eye that saw them. Though tired after all the labour she had put into readying them, the splendour surrounding her made her forget the fatigue; she could not wait for Christmas Day to arrive.

Every year, since 2015, Jennifer had been buying Christmas presents for ALL the children who lived in an orphanage near her home without fail. Every time somebody asked the reason behind it, she simply smiled and said that she loved children. But little did people know the true story behind her annual ritual.

The year was 2012. Jennifer and her husband had been living happily with their four-year-old daughter. They had all the comforts of joyful family life—financial stability, successful careers, a comfortable home in a pleasant neighbourhood, a loving extended family—you name it. However, destiny thought that it had been too kind to Jennifer for far too long and decided to even the score. 

On Christmas eve, Jennifer had to urgently go out of town on work-related matters for the weekend. It was going to be the first time she was not going to celebrate Christmas with her family; however, she promised her daughter that she’d make up for it when she returned.

The next afternoon, it being Christmas day, Jennifer’s husband and daughter had gone to the church in their neighbourhood. One moment, her husband had been gleefully talking to the other fellow attendees, while her daughter was playing in the backyard of the church; the very next, everything fell silent and motionless. 

A bomb explosion had taken place which brought the entire complex and neighbouring areas down to ruins; so was Jennifer’s world—such was the impact that there was no single survivor from the catastrophe. It took Jennifer three whole years to come out of the trauma and try to get her life back to normal or find a new purpose to continue living.

The church where the tragedy had occurred, was rebuilt, this time with an orphanage in its backyard. Moments before the explosion on that fateful day, Jennifer’s husband and its attendees had been discussing using the vast open area in the backyard to build an orphanage and it only seemed fitting to remember the lives lost by realizing their dream. And it was the same reason that pushed Jennifer to start giving presents to the kids in that orphanage—it was a way for her to fulfil her promise to her daughter to make up for missing Christmas and honour her husband’s dream of sharing the joy of Christmas with those deprived of it.

Ever since, Jennifer would start saving whatever she earned from the beginning of the year for the presents for the children. She would go present-buying a month in advance and made sure to carefully select the best presents in town and make them extra special. And she did all of it single-handedly. It didn’t bother her that this endeavour of hers left her with a little less than ample resources for herself—all that mattered was keeping her promise and fulfilling the dream; it was her Christmas present to her daughter and her husband.