This article is a bit old, but I wanted to share. It was published in the March 2018 OWC Rangoli magazine, but mistakenly by the new editor, under a friend’s byline instead of mine. My first article published and under someone else’s name. Hilarious, and typical.

Probably like most families with young children who celebrate Christmas, ours was VERY excited about it this year. We were busy gearing up for the holiday season months and months before December 25th. Our 3 girls spent hours on Amazon excitedly choosing gifts that they wanted Santa or grandparents back home in the US to bring them. The 8-year old chose a Lego treehouse set, the 6-year old wanted the Lego Elves dragon building set, and the 3-year old asked for make-up, “real make up, Mommy!” My husband retrieved the 6-foot tall Christmas tree from storage, and set it up the day after Thanksgiving, which in the US is the absolute earliest one can set up the Christmas tree (the unwritten Christmas tree rule). At church the 8-year old played Mary and the 6-year old played a shepherd in the church’s Christmas performance. And for several months prior to Christmas, I was busy collecting beautiful Indian handmade treats to take to friends and family back home since this was our first trip back to the US in over a year and a half: Block printed and silk-screened scarves, anuLIFE mobile phone pouches and reusable grocery bags, Christmas tree ornaments from Jaipur, auto rickshaw ornaments from Pondicherry, bangles made by our nanny, and kids’ silk kurtas and elaborately embroidered lehengas from Fabindia.

In the midst of all this decking the halls and joyful frenzied holiday preparation the OWC’s annual Holiday Gift Drive took place. This annual drive provided the opportunity for OWC members and friends to spread holiday cheer in the form of a small gift to the charities we support. Although not all of our charities celebrate Christmas, all appreciate the thought and generosity of a holiday present. Of course, we would love to be able to provide a gift for each person in each and every one of our 20 OWC supposed charities, however, it’s just not possible, and so each year the OWC Charities Committee chooses 2 or 3 charities to purchase gifts for. In years past the gifts have ranged from sweaters and pencil cases to sports equipment chocolates, and the charities which receive gifts are chosen based on a rotation. This year’s chosen charities were SKID and Helpline, both of which do amazingly important and selfless work for Bangalore’s neediest children, and who loves a holiday gift more than a child? SKID runs a school for 150 children with hearing impairments, and Helpline is a group home for children who are orphaned, abandoned or abused.

The charities were asked what their children would like as gifts this year because we know from experience with our own kids that what we think they want isn’t always what they actually want. SKID requested 150 books with 5000 English words with pictures, and the kids at Helpline chose watches, books about Bruce Lee, Jacky Chan, and other heroes, coloring books, and puzzles. To purchase 200 gifts plus chocolate bars and wrapping materials, we needed to collect about 80,000 rupees, which was a seemingly daunting task. However, the OWC members and friends truly came through to share the holiday spirit and the generosity of the season with the children. Money was collected in several different ways: at Coffee Mornings by OWC Charities Members diligently and persistently ‘shaking their tins,’ through an on-line store, at the OWC’s annual Christmas Bazaar, during OWC road trips, and from neighbors during Halloween trick or treating. We even put flyers in 400 neighbors’ mailboxes throughout Adarsh Palm Retreat. The 6-week long drive finished 2 weeks early because we reached our goal through the generosity of the membership.

The next step was to purchase all of these presents, and wrap them up. Since Amazon.in limits the number of products one can purchase, we contacted the publisher directly who was able to give us a 20% discount on the 150 books for SKID. For the children of Helpline, it was a bit trickier as each child requested a different item. Fortunately, through the efforts of our very detail-oriented Charities Committee members we were able to get the gifts bought. Chocolate bars for the top of each gift were donated by an OWC member, so we were able to utilize as much as we could of the donated funds on the actual gifts themselves.

And then came the wrapping party, which was held at Adarsh Palm Retreat, Villa 12. About 10 OWC members stopped by to lend their wrapping talents to this great cause. Each present was lovingly wrapped in shimmery paper, topped with a festive bow, a chocolate bar, and a gift tag while we sipped mimosas. The 200 presents were wrapped in under 3 hours thanks to everyone’s help. With holiday music playing in the background, gifts and shimmery wrapping materials strewn all over the house, and the Christmas tree in the corner blinking its colored lights, it truly felt like Christmas, even though it was 27 degrees outside with no chance of snow.

With the presents wrapped, the OWC Charities Committee liaisons for SKID and Helpline—Susan, Sumi and I—delivered them to the charities. Helpline wanted to hand out the gifts around Christmas day, which unfortunately meant that we were not able to give them out ourselves since we will be back in our home countries. However, SKID allowed Susan, Sumi and Susan’s cute son to play Santa’s helpers and hand out the gifts. The letter we received from Ms. Jessy Samuel, Principal of SKID summed up much better than I can what this year’s Holiday Gift Drive meant to the children of SKID:

“Thank you very much for arranging the Christmas gifts for all our students through OWC charities. It was so touching to see your BIG LITTLE HELPER Evren carrying the heavy books in his little strong arms, giving them away to the children and helping you and Ms. Sumi to give away the books. Our students were so happy and excited to receive this book and we are sure that this book will help them to increase their vocabulary and language. Our sincere thanks to OWC for this gift-drive and thanks to Ms. Sumi too.”

A huge thank you to all of the fabulous OWC members and friends for making this holiday season a very special one for 2 of our charities. Because of you, the spirit of the holiday season was felt by some very deserving kids in Bangalore. Want to volunteer with one of our charities or for the OWC Charities Committee? Email charities@owcbangalore.com.