This is a story of two families who are looking to Globe Santa to make this Christmas morning a bright moment for their children at the end of a year of tough times.
When fire swept through the home of a single mother in a town just south of Boston late last year, she and her 4-year-old son, though unharmed, lost everything they owned. The rebuilding has been tough, she told Globe Santa in her letter, with lots of back and forth on insurance claims and allowances for things like temporary housing. But, she added, the emotional toll has been far worse, particularly for her son.
“He is devastated that he lost all his favorite toys in the fire,’’ she wrote, “and he’s afraid that Santa Claus doesn’t know where he lives anymore.’’ While the boy is fretting, she wrote, “I am still trying to find a place to call home.’’ Her son loves to read, paint, do arts and crafts, and play with action figures, the mother said, “so he would love anything just to feel that Santa still remembers him.’’
The father in the second family put things straightforwardly in his letter: “My wife and I and our two children, a boy, 9, and a girl, 7, need help this Christmas because we have very little money.’’ What they have, he said, is enough to cover essentials, but when unexpected expenses pop up — like a recent bill for the repairs needed to get their car back on the road — they find themselves in dire straits. “Even now,’’ the father wrote, “we still owe family members who lent us money to get the work done.’’
The father and his wife both work, he says, and they are providing their children with a loving home, but the two salaries regularly fall short of monthly expenses. “It’s very hard to admit that our family needs help,’’ he wrote, “but anything your program can do for our kids will be greatly appreciated.’’
Globe Santa, a program of the Boston Globe Foundation, will make sure there will be gifts for those children under their trees on Christmas Day, with credit due to the compelling generosity of the thousands of contributors who year after year keep our community’s littlest ones in mind during the holiday season.
Christopher Tangney can be reached at ctangney22@hotmail.com.
