Las Christmas

Read Online Las Christmas by Esmeralda Santiago - Free Book Online

Book: Las Christmas by Esmeralda Santiago Read Free Book Online
Authors: Esmeralda Santiago
Tags: Fiction
Ads: Link
me how poor we were.
    My mother, however, knew to the last penny how bad things were. She was the one who had to beg for extensions to pay the rent and for credit at the corner store. Poverty also forced her to forgo her pride and deliver her children to strangers who could give them things she could not, because this is a choice the poor must often face—to keep their children in certain destitution or to give them away to the possibility of a better life. It was clear from an early age that I was a child fated to be given away. I was a curious, precocious boy who buried his head in books and looked far beyond the shantytown horizons of Gardenland. Throughout my childhood my mother gradually surrendered me to the world of white people, and it was there that I discovered how badly off we really were.
    The Lions held their Christmas party in an auditorium in downtown Sacramento. I remember a big, brightly lit room furnished for the occasion with tables covered by red-and-green tablecloths, each with a centerpiece of gilded pinecones, holly, and candles. A long table at the back of the room held bowls of punch and plates of sweets. There were a couple of hundred children, most of us black or brown. We all wore our best clothes, enjoined not to get them dirty. There were always tears when someone scuffed her new shoes or spilled punch on his white shirt. We loaded paper plates with cookies, candies, and cake, and carried them, along with plastic glasses of punch, to our sponsor’s table. The front of the room served as a stage from which we were entertained by a magician or a church choir singing the traditional carols, but they were merely a prelude. Behind them was an immense Christmas tree, its pine scent filling the room. Ropes of colored light twined through the dark branches hung with globes and tinsel. At the very top, almost scraping the ceiling, was a gold star bordered in tiny white lights. Beneath the tree were piles of presents gorgeously wrapped in silver and gold, red and green, and tied with bright ribbons and lavish bows. Next to them was a thronelike chair from which Santa Claus dispensed the bounty.
    For most of us kids, the heaps of presents represented such unimaginable plenty that at first it hardly mattered what was inside them. But as the afternoon wore on and we filled ourselves with sugar, astonishment gave way to excitement, excitement to impatience, and impatience to anxiety that maybe there wouldn’t be enough presents to go around. By the time Santa Claus emerged from the wings on a sleigh pushed by green-clad helper elves, the mood in the hall was not so much joy as agitation. It failed to occur to the good-hearted Lions, as they planned the party’s little treats and surprises, that instead of delighting the poor children of Sacramento, the magician and the choir would only prolong our anxiety about the presents. We were kids who didn’t have anything and to have these riches dangled in front of us was enough, really, to make us all a little crazy.
    After a brief speech about how he had checked his list of good children and found our names on it, Santa distributed the presents with the help of an elf who handed him the packages from beneath the tree. After Santa read the name of the child for whom the gift was intended, he or she walked to the front of the room to accept it while a photographer memorialized the moment. With a couple of hundred kids, the ceremony took time and well before it was over any remaining gaiety had been replaced by restlessness. We were admonished not to open our presents until we got home, but some kids couldn’t wait, and ripped through the shiny wrapping paper even as they walked back to their tables. Inevitably, they were disappointed because the present was not selected for the particular child but generically—dolls for girls, Lincoln Logs for boys, that kind of thing. At the end, the party felt no different to me than waiting in the

Similar Books

A Different World

Mary Nichols

Long Summer Day

R. F. Delderfield

Long Division

Taylor Leigh

The Art of Mending

Elizabeth Berg

The Perfect Hope

Nora Roberts

Highland Warrior

Hannah Howell

Dearest Enemy

Renee Simons

Nightrunners

Joe R. Lansdale