Just How Lucky We Are by Carlie Wilson

It’s Christmas time. A season of holiday lights, food, Santa Claus, snow, music, and of course, the presents. When I was younger, Christmas was my favorite time of the year, probably because I knew that every year I would be waking up to a pile of gifts under the tree with everything that I wanted and a delicious meal was waiting for me at my grandmother’s house.

When I moved to South Africa in fifth grade I quickly learned that Christmas is not all that it is cut out to be. No Christmas lights on houses, carols on the radio and in the store were rare, and Santa Claus was non-existent. In seventh grade I was given the opportunity to volunteer at a local elementary school once a month. On our visits there, we would simply read them books and sometimes we even played games with them. On our trip in December we were all asked to bring a gift and a book for our book buddies. I decided to buy my book buddy a barbie doll and some children's reading and writing books that would help her with her English that she was, at the time, trying to learn. Upon arrival, I was really excited to give her the Barbie doll because when I was younger, playing barbie with my sisters was what I spent almost all of my free time doing and I wanted her to be able to experience the same thing. When I gave her the gifts, she immediately pulled out the books, set the barbie aside and excitedly continued to flip the the pages of the book and then went on to show her friends the books leaving the barbie doll forgotten on the table. It was very interesting to see how much more appreciative she was of the books than of the doll. For me it was quite the opposite. When my mom bought science books, world maps, Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader video games, BrainPop quiz books, the Rocket Science kits, and even Junie B. Jones books, though I was appreciative of them, I had received them every year, throughout the year, and had loads of them stacked up in our playroom. My focus was the on the bikes, American Girl dolls, the Wii, Easy Bake ovens, and Play Dough sets.

When I came back to America  I realized how much we materialize Christmas time. It was almost overwhelming to see how much time and efforts are put into a time that has lost  it’s real meaning. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Christmas time and enjoy the gifts that I receive, but it is hard to see Christmas the same when I have witnessed people who are unable to find a book under the tree (if they even have one at all) when they wake up in the morning. It just doesn't seem right.