Yes Yvegeny, there is a Santa Claus

If Santa Claus has a living surrogate that secretly relays the deepest wishes and desires of children to his fortress of the north, I believe that person must be my father. More than any grandfather of my acquaintance, he delights in making the most heartfelt, secret dreams of children come true. My mother is his able accomplice. I vividly recall one Christmas when all my daughter Sara wanted was one of those dratted Furbys. It was that year's "Tickle-Me-Elmo" or "Cabbage Patch Kid" Toys-R-Us stampede item--the one that radio call-in auctions were selling off for outrageous amounts. My mom happened to be in a store when her ever ready shoppers instincts sniffed out a great find--I imagine much like those truffle-hunting pigs in Italy that find hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of the precious fungi. Mom knew there was buried treasure somewhere amidst the piles of Chinese manufactured trashy trinkets. There it was: the Furby. Sara had her Christmas wish come true that year. My mom was a hero. Why it became necessary to kill the Furby is another story. But my dad's brilliant legal mind hides the softest, tenderest heart of anyone I know. He delights in the wide-eyed wonder of kids eating in dark, firefly lit environs of "The Blue Bayou" restaurant in Disneyland or the excitement of a grandchild who catches a fish "this big." He loves springing the best gifts on his children and grandchildren. He loves being the guy who makes dreams come true. When we are able to surprise and delight him, there's a tingly kind of excitement that makes the occasion so much more special that we smile until our smiles start to hurt and then we keep smiling. I had one of those moments today that reminded me of my dad. It makes me want to be Santa's special helper. My daughters' school has an annual gift program for several orphanages in and around Moscow. Last year it was a lot of generic, impersonal requests for toys, shoes, items for a 16 year old girl or a soccer ball for a 12 year old boy. Shopping wasn't unlike many shopping trips I've had in the past where I picked a paper ornament off a tree, discovered that "Girl, Age 8" wants a "Snow White Barbie with Special Sparkle Gown" and went off in search of the item that I would then deposit beneath a tree in the store. This year, the school took a different approach. Students went out and visited the orphans, asked for wish lists, obtained pictures of the kids and charged each student with making a personalized package for a specific orphan child. My three daughters were assigned four children: high school aged twin girls, a 12 year old boy and a 7 year old boy. After discussing the orphan's wish lists, I set off for the mall to see what I could find. Shopping in Russia can be like a cross between hunting through the piles of a garage sale or climbing over neverending piles of stuff that give America a run for its money in terms of opulence. There's often too little of the right stuff, too much of the wrong stuff and a lot of ticky-tacky junk in between. What might be in stock one week may vanish from the shelves forever the next. The 12 year old and the twins didn't have difficult requests. I quickly located some adorable clothes at Esprit for the sporty teen girls and a fire-engine red Ferrari car for the boy. What concerned me most was the 7 year old boy. Rachel had sent me one specific request: Spiderman clothes. I'd already had my friend Elke out combing the stores for anything with a SpiderMan logo. Because there isn't a WalMart in sight (our neighbors the Belnaps are hoping to change that--go team Belnap!), finding logo clothing is difficult if not impossible. When I asked Rachel for further clarification, she explained that what this boy really wanted was a SpiderMan costume but no one actually thought there was one out there, especially at this time of year. The class had decided to go for the next best thing--a SpiderMan sweatshirt. I searched high and low. I looked in every store. I dug through the bins. I scanned the displays. Not a SpiderMan sweatshirt in a kids size in sight. In the meantime, a picture of this scrawny 7 year old orphan boy began to form in my mind. I could see his short, coarse brown hair with a insolent cowlick, maybe in the back. The quintessential Russian Slavic bone structure, pale skin--maybe blue eyes, narrow lips, tightly pursed smile. Skinny kid whose clothes probably hung off his bony little body. And I imagined this boy whose, parents abandoned him, who statistically has a very bleak future here in Russia, that just loved SpiderMan. SpiderMan, an outcast super hero--misunderstood, ordinary guy with a very special secret. I could imagine this little boy longing to have his own special secret, finding an escape in this American myth and wondering what it must mean to him. I wanted to take him in my arms and give him a big hug and beg him to not give up hope when he grew up, to find a way to live and be happy in this hard, cold country. Finding a way to find this kid a SpiderMan Christmas began to possess me. I wasn't hopeful when I arrived at Detsky Mir, a store that translates to "Children's World." Everything on the list had been found without too much work. I was feeling warm and fuzzy--and it wasn't just the cold medicine sustaining me--except the SpiderMan boy. I canvassed the floor, looking on every shelf, through racks of clothes and costumes. When I found a SpiderMan action figure, I thought I might find something that would "make due." I even found a SpiderMan transformer car that I hoped would excite him. I was ready to give up when my friend showed up, prepared for the last leg of shopping, when I looked up on a wall at a display that had been hidden behind racks of Russian folk-style costumes, and there it was: SpiderMan. Not just one, but THREE styles of SpiderMan. I jumped up and down where I stood, pumping my arm in the air in victory. Not only did they have several to choose from, they had his size in what, in my opinion, was the coolest of the three. (For the record, the security guard who helped us take off the security tag, pronounced it "Хороший костюма" with a big smile on his face ("Good Costume." ) Our family's littlest orphan had his Christmas wish. We will not be there when he opens the package--or even with the package is delivered. I have no idea if the picture in my mind of this little boy is in any way related to the reality of this little boy. At this point, I don't know if that matters. He wanted a SpiderMan costume; he will have--the once a year he is remembered--something his heart dearly hoped for. He may forget about it a week from the day he opens it. For today, I feel like my father's daughter. Am I selfish for savoring this tingly, joyful moment? Giving today has given back to me a thousand times. There are so many days I feel hopeless and helpless in this country. I look around at the despair--the blind babushkas in the crowded metro, the grizzled veterans in their threadbare, but neat as a pin clothes shuffling up the walkways, the homeless, the handicapped and most of all the orphans. The tens of thousands of abandoned Russian children who, statistically, will die before they reach their 25th birthday, victims of street crime, drug abuse, homelessness, and suicide. The reality of these children haunts me, breaks my heart and makes me weep for the tragedy of it all. Other than stuffing a hundred ruble note into the outstretched beggar's cup, I usually feel overwhelmingly helpless in the face of this pain. I want to fix it all. To make everyone happy. I imagine what my Heavenly Father must feel when He sees what His children do to each other and wonder if there is anything I can do to make it better. To imagine that Jesus Christ suffered all of the pain that each orphan feels--their loneliness, their heartbreak--and carried this on His shoulders on one hand is awe inspiring but on the other hand is hopeful: at least there is one Great One in the universe who understands these children and knows their deepest sorrows. How can I, the least of servants, make a difference? Today I tried. I may not save a vulnerable girl from prostitution or prevent a runaway from freezing in his sleep in an alleyway, but I made sure that one scrawny orphan boy will receive the one wish he had on his Christmas list. Yes, Yvegeny, there is a Santa Claus who hopefully brought a little hope, a little light--however reflected it may be from the Greater Light--to your life for Christmas. This is all I know how to do for now--I wish I could do more. Tomorrow it will be back to the harried, hassled ways of life in Moscow but today... today something is right.