Spending Christmas

Christmas is the time of giving sharing one's blessings to others, sharing time with God's children who may need our companionship the most, specially at this time.
It has been our habit to be with God's special children during Christmas time, the orphaned and abandoned tots who do not have parents with whom they can spend Christmas.
Since we spent Christmas in Bohol with our grandmother and uncles, aunts and cousins, we visited our little friends at the Sunshine Home, the home of abandoned children and orphans.
Children at the Sunshine Home is a project of the Bohol Catholic Women's League of which my grandmother, Mommy Charing, remains an active member
The Sunshine Home is the project closest to her heart.
She relayed to us her children and grandchildren that they (CWL) have helped take care of abandoned children, specially children of prostitutes who just leave their children with relatives, who also could not properly take care of these children.
The Sunshine Home provides shelter and opportunities for growth for these children.
When we visited Sunshine Home today December 25, there were some training equipment for the children like computers, sewing machines which could help train them and provide skills as they grow.
Many of the children are still young and are in dire need of parental love and care.
So on this rainy Christmas afternoon, Mommy Charing, our aunts, Malou (who is based in New Jersey), Milet and Mamel and my wife Ruby and son Josh, cousins Daniel and Nikka shared our time with God's little children who could not spend Christmas the way many others spend theirs.
We brought them ice cream and cakes, while they performed songs for the visitors.
One child, Reynan, who is among the youngest at three could not escape our attention as he was very very entertaining.
There are twenty five boys and girls at Sunshine Home. They are taken care of until they graduate from high school.
Therafter they leave and look for homes where they can work and study for college as working students.
It is with these special children that I am really able to deeply appreciate the real meaning of Christmas.
The children I met today, Reynan, Peter, and the others, have no parents to spend Christmas with.
Yet, I saw in them incredible joy, all of them smiling, and very eager to perform for us, their visitors on Christmas.
This is in contrast with others who spend their lives complaining almost about everything that come to them.
The children probably receive no gifts on Christmas eve. Yet they were very willing and eager to give us gifts through songs and dances.
Want to know the real meaning of Christamas?
Spend December 25 with God's special children.