Dear Santa...
Dear Santa,
I hope you are sitting warmly by a fireplace when you read this. I hope you are in cradling a mug of hot chocolate filled with marshmallows to the brim, enjoying the Christmas music playing in the background while in the company of Mrs. Claus. It looks like it's going to be a cold winter this year, so make sure you dress warm when you're out there delivering gifts. Speaking of gifts, I guess I might as well get into my wish list this year since we both know that's why I took the time to write you this letter. Santa, this year I'm not going to ask you for that beautiful sweater I saw in the display window at the mall last week. Although I haven't ever been to a hockey game, I will have to pass on those Blackhawks tickets too. I don't need perfume or a bag. In fact, I don't really need any items. Sure, there are things that I want and now would be a good time to ask for them, but I won't use the holidays to do so. Don't get me wrong, I know that's not what this holiday is for, I absolutely love Christmas; I enjoy every fragment of it, from the church mass to the sparkling lights illuminating the city to the ornaments intimately hanging off the trees and even to those silly little red cups people keep arguing about. Who doesn't love an ugly sweater party or making a gingerbread house they'll never eat? But you see, Santa, I won't use the holiday to ask for anything this year because I have what I need; I have a roof over my head and a cozy bed to sleep in. There is always food on the table and I am surrounded with my friends and family every single day. So you're probably wondering why I even wrote this if I don't need anything but please let me explain. This year, my wish list is for the world, it is for humanity. I am wishing for a little more kindness and compassion from my fellow humans.
The truth is, Santa, I lost hope in humanity the minute that I read this 7-year-old girl's tweet:
If you follow her tweets, you will learn that Bana Alabed is a 7 year old girl living in Aleppo, Syria, where bombings are taking place on a daily basis. Let me remind you, she is 7-years old. When I was 7, I was busy pretending I was a Power Ranger, I was eating cereal while watching cartoons and begging my mom for a toy at the checkout line. Perhaps I was a privileged child, maybe so, but regardless no child should be giving up on life, no child should be tweeting pictures of their destroyed homes saying, "This is our house, My beloved dolls died in the bombing of our house. I am very sad but happy to be alive." I wish I could say Bana's tweets are innocent, I guess in a sense they are since they are being narrated by a child (and sometimes by her mother), but what they are saying is everything but innocent. Her tweets are heavy, dark, and painful. Bana is not an exception or a rare case. Among 250,000 people that are trapped in Aleppo are 100,000 children. Children that are in hiding shelters, where they cannot play, they cannot eat, they cannot attend school. They are out in the dead cold of winter with no warm embrace to greet them. Aid groups estimate that there are only 35 doctors remaining in East Aleppo — one for every 7,143 people, assuming a population of 250,000 people. To top it all off, aids are blocked off from reaching them. This means hospital shortages, no medication, nothing. These kids...these people...are literally...trapped.
So here I am with a handful of wishes. I am wishing that the world would stop being selectively empathetic. I am wishing the world will reach out to these people, help them because boy do they NEED our help. They need our love and our kindness. They need our warmth. They need our generosity . They need our compassion. They need hope. They NEED someone to act for them because they cannot do it for themselves. I refuse to be one of the people that these children think of when they ask, "Why didn't they do anything? How come no one has helped us?" Our movements need to echo, our strides need to press for change, they need to press for compassion to our fellow humans suffering in the world. How was the seed of kindness not watered along the trail of our own growth?
My Christmas Wish-List
1. Take Action! Join demonstrations where you live:
If you can't find one, start one.
2. Contact your leaders, sign petitions, urge them to make this stop:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173574
3. Donate to relief efforts:
https://www.usaid.gov/crisis/syria
http://www.operationrefugeechild.org
https://mercyusa.org/emergency-relief-for-aleppo-syria/
https://www.syriarelief.org.uk
4. Volunteer:
http://www.sams-usa.net
Maybe it would've been easier to ask for a sweater, but that'd be at the expense of these people and I cannot be okay with that. Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Spread love, spread kindness, spread generosity ....some people really need it.
Sincerely,
Natalie Salman
