Our Christmas

We had only very few memories of happiness and joy during our childhood.... Christmas was such an occasion...... Amidst all sorrows and disappointments.....we used to celebrate Christmas...

Both me and my brother have to wait till our Xmas Exams to get over... In between the exams also, we secretly organised the materials for Christmas without our mum's knowledge.....or we thought so...may be she was knowing it and acting as if she don't ....

We loved dark colours and glitters..... but was never able to get....it was far beyond the reach of our lean purse....true...we don't even had a purse.... Our Christmas always had the shade of sorrows and scarcity and faded colours....

Both of us don't have many friends...in our world, only we were there...of course... one more was there....one of our neighbors...he is a priest now.... With great difficulty... we used to collect small colour papers(always faded)..... Balloons.... small stars....(most of the time damaged ones)...some times we tried to make things ...but never had the expected perfection.....With great enthusiasm we cut the branches....decorated with the colour papers and Xmas cards...tried with all possible things to make it beautiful....But never we were satisfied...for it never had the beauty of the Xmas trees which we have seen in the Christmas cards......

December evenings, the sounds of Drums in the nearby church heralds the arrival of Christmas for us... They are practicing carol songs....Boys of our age used to go for practice....we never had the permission for that.... we thought those boys were the luckiest in this world.....

Crackers.....Our Mum, in spite of her financial difficulty, used to give little money....we were happy with that..... We had many dreams....but boys nearby also had only very limited funds.....we used to call them to see and involve..... Though it will last only for some minutes... we shared it........

Today... we have the best of every thing......Wonderful Christmas Tree, better than the ones which are there in Cards.........all bright colours.....glitters.... have the best music system and instruments which can produce wonderful sounds of Christmas.....Fat purse...which we can buy any amount of crackers......

But......... our faded Xmas tree is still colourful in our mind.....The sounds of that old rusted drums from the nearby church... is still the sound of Christmas for us.......that small pack of crakers(only a handful) made us happier than the huge cartons......

The saddest of all.......we couldn't even remember any of our recent Christmas.....