Lessons from The Velveteen Rabbit

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled.

Christmas Traditions

“It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, Everywhere you go…” Well, not really. Not here, not for me. Which, has made me think a lot about Christmas, the traditions, and what exactly does Christmas mean for me. This is my first Christmas away from home, and I think my saving grace is that it feels like summer, there is no snow, and it’s really easy to forget its less than a week away—but I have watched Love Actually about 30 times, so the Christmas spirit is going strong even in this tropical climate. In fact I’m making Christmas cookies with the boys tonight, and Saturday we’re having Christmas dinner (but Mom, make sure you save me some perogies) because I want to share some of my Christmas traditions with my Honduran family.

My family has a lot of Christmas traditions, from going into the woods to cut down our tree to be decorated by hand made decorations accumulated over the years, to the advent calendar we each take turns filling for the day with 6 special treats, kind words or a fun evening activity, to making rum balls with my brother, to playing ‘Taste of Christmas’ (a compilation of scremo style Christmas songs) while decorating because I used to be a scremo kid and my brothers and I still enjoy the CD, to attending Church on Christmas eve and embracing my mothers East Coast roots with mince meat pie. I even have some traditions of my own, that my family doesn’t necessarily like, such as heading to Paul's and playing shootable snakes and ladders with Christmas inspired shots while Santie Clause is busy dropping of toys to the good girls and boys, but they support because it’s important to me and I still get out of bed at the crack of dawn when my little sister is ready to open presents before the sun has had a chance to rise. To taking turns watching each other open presents slowly and deliberately, to the log channel on T.V. that my dad insists on putting on even thought we have a real fire going, to mimosas and smoked salmon/cream cheese bagels once the living room looks like a battle ground of wrapping paper and bows to watching its a Wonderful Life after Christmas brunch because its my moms one of my moms favourite movies. To preparing Christmas dinner for all of my wonderful beautiful, slightly loco extended family and close family friends, to playing in the snow with my little cousins, to lots of hugs, laughter and a warm fire.

For me Christmas is a feeling, that extends just the one day and can fill up the entire month. It’s about family—for better and for worse—and its about the warmth and happiness I get from seeing so many of the people that I care about and love at the same time, and sharing these special traditions and moments with. Its about the accumulation of (22 years) of memories and experiences, its about feeling warm even though its cold outside, its about making people smile by picking out the perfect gift (or a thoughtful action), its about going to the mall on December 23rd looking for that last minute thing to pull everything together and rather than battling the swarms of last minute shoppers, reveling in the last minute Christmas chaos while sharing the moment, and its about regardless of the annual Christmas eve ‘disagreement’, knowing that your family is family and the next morning (before the sun rises) you’ll be thrown together into something magical—and to me that is something special.

When I have a family of my own (don’t worry Dad—it wont be for a (long)while), I want to share my families traditions with them, and make some of my own—I’ll probably ditch the Christmas shooters—and share the special magical feeling that my parents were able to share with me when I was little and continue to help me feel until now, for my first Christmas away from home sans family and sans snow—but not sans Christmas spirit. I’ll miss my family (friends and loved ones) this Christmas. I’ll miss our traditions, making gingerbread men with Kaitlyn and Damien, drinking eggnog by the tree every night with my mom and a warm fire, spilling my coffee Christmas morning (every year without fail) because I didn’t move it when my dad told me to because he (still) always knows best. I’ll miss the laughter, the smiles, and even the Christmas eve ‘disagreement’, but I will be thinking of them and (I hope) they’ll be thinking of me, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s enough to keep the Christmas magic alive.

Merry Christmas—knock back a few Spiced Nogs for me ;)
Delaney C.

In the Beginning…

Once upon a time there was a little girl living in a Kingdom far far away. This little girl loved to be outside, play with her friends, read books, and hear her mother father and aunt tell her stories of people and places very different from her own. One day, when she was about five, her father took her to a meeting where people in the village were talking about how come there were so many children in the kingdom who were living in poverty and what they could do to change it. As the little girl sat at the table with all the adults (who weren’t as scary as one might think) she drew, and she listened. Then one of the adults at the table looked at her and said, “Little girl, what do you think?” Her answer is irrelevant, but this little girl knew that this was something big. That an adult had taken the time to ask her what she thought about kids her age living in a type of poverty that she couldn’t even understand and that this table full of adults genuinely wanted to hear what she had to say.

As this little girl grew she thought she had super powers. She could tell when her mother or father were upset before anyone else could. She could feel when children at school were feeling left out. And she knew that sometimes all it took to make her friends, her parents, or her teachers feel better was to smile at them. She loved playing in the field behind her house with the other children living on her street. They would run through the bushes with swords fighting off fire breathing dragons, build forts for protection as they became the first settlers in a new land, caught tadpoles and watched them develop into frogs, climbed trees to watch for pirates who were trying to attack their ships, and she was always coming up with new games for them to play.

On Sunday mornings she would sit in her basement and cry. What she saw on t.v. made her feel sad and she didn’t understand. Children who were the same age as her didn’t have families to tell them stories. They didn’t get to school. They didn’t have food to eat or water to drink. She would watch World Vision and cry because now that she knew what was happening she couldn’t look away. Her mother found her one Sunday and asked her what was wrong. The littler girl said, “Mommy I don’t understand. How come these children don’t have food, and don’t have water? Why can’t they go to school? Where are their parents? And how come I have all of these things.” The little girls mother then said “Well what do you think we should do about it?” The little girl and her mother phoned the people and World Vision and got two children that they would sponsor and the little girl wrote them stories and letters every week. The little girl also started saving her money that she put in a separate piggy bank. When Christmas time came around her mother and her father took her to BJ-Supertoy Sales with all of her money (which they had gladly matched) and she picked out toys to give to children in Winnipeg who might not be getting toys under the tree. She remembers walking into Winnipeg Harvest with two garbage bags full of toys and how happy the man who took them was to see her. It felt better than all the candy she could have bought with that money would have tasted, and she knew it was something she needed to do for a long long time.

One day she was outside playing by herself (she was about 6 now) and a group of boys who were a bit older than her were playing soccer in the field behind her house. She was excited. She had never really played soccer before. In fact just last week she got her first nose bleed when she walked onto the soccer field at school and became an innocent victim of an undirected ball She went up to the boys and asked whose team she could be on. The boys looked at her then they looked at each other and then they laughed. “You know girls can’t play soccer they said.” And then they went back to playing. She ran home crying. Boys can be mean you know. When she got home her dad asked her what was wrong. She told him that the boys said, “Girls don’t play soccer, but I really wanted to play Daddy. I really wanted to play soccer.” The next day she was signed up for soccer and had her first practice the next week.

Her dad believed in her. Her parents listened to her even though she was small and knew ‘nothing’. She was told by adults that she could and more importantly should do anything that she wanted to. All of these things started her on an adventure that she didn’t fully understand at the time, and likely still doesn’t understand now.

I am lucky to have parents who support everything I do. Without showing me but letting me find my own way and being there for me to answer questions, and most often ask more; making me think about why I am thinking about what I am thinking about. My mom tells me a story of when I was younger and I refused to sleep in my bed or eat anything but rice and water because that’s what other kids had to do in Africa (once again thanks to too much Sunday morning World Vision). I get embarrassed when my mom or dad tell me stories like those because now I have a better understanding (along with an increased skepticism) of organizations such as World Vision. BUT it was because of my exposure to those images, those stories, those voices (that I'm sure you are all aware of) at such a young age (coupled with some curiosity and empathy and the other combination of characteristics that together make me who I am) that has brought me to this place in time, and in my life. I didn’t really include any of the stories or events occurring between then and now but the first 7 years of my life laid the foundation….to where I am now, and to where I’ll go in the future.