Hello, dear readers. How good it is to be with you again. I don't know how the weather has been in your city, but it's been very cold around here. That's December: not only does it bring an icy breeze, but also the joy, the colors, the feeling of solidarity and unity. Those feelings are with us all year, but it is at Christmass, when they bloom in a special way. Don't you think so?

I know that many will say that it is an advertising campaign, an event invented by the market, by the cinema and even by literature, and maybe they are right. But I think it's not bad to be carried away by the spirit of Christmas, the one that makes us be good to others, that makes us a child again, if we don't hurt anyone anyway.

I remember that when I was a child, one of my favorite stories was the super famous Charles Dickens Christmas Carol(1843), the classic par excellence, in which the ghosts of Christmas try to instill in the stingy Mr. Scrooge the Christmas spirit. The spirits of the past and the present made me cry: one for the sad and the other for the tragic. But I was happy when I saw that Mr. Scrooge changed his way of being and became a good person who helped others. That's why I've learned that Christmas is a time to share what we have.

As time went by, I had the good fortune of watching movies that versioned Dickens' story that I found wonderful and I could also read other stories that reaffirmed that Christmas spirit in me. One of those stories that marked me and that I read when I was a child was De cómo Panchito Mandefuá cenó con el niño Jesús, by José Rafael Pocaterra, a Venezuelan writer. The story of this story helps parents to elevate the Christmas spirit and sensitize their children to the social problem of abandoned childhood, as the story summarizes the traits of a Venezuelan child living on the street.

This story tells the story of Panchito Mandefuá, a boy who worked in the street and that on December 24, after helping a girl to pay for some sweets that had been taken away, while he was thinking about everything he could eat that day, has an accident and goes to heaven to have dinner with the Child Jesus. Seen in this way, you will surely think, dear reader, that it is a very tragic tale, but also beautiful and instructive.

The story begins when the narrator addresses the reader:

To you who tonight will go to sit at the table of yours, surrounded by your children, healthy and fat, next to your wife who is happy to have you at home for Christmas dinner ... I dedicate this Christmas story, this ugly and insignificant tale, Panchito Mandefuá, rascal wallet, born of anyone with anyone in full alcabala, starry child to whom the Child God invited to dinner.

With this annotation the narrator achieves many things, among them that of motivating our reading to see how a street child dined with the Child Jesus, but also to make us feel uncomfortable because it starts from the idea that the reader is a person who can celebrate Christmas without sadness and lack. After this brief introduction, the narrator goes on to describe Panchito. He tells us that he is a boy who lives on the street, that he is 9 years old, that he works selling lottery numbers and that his most peculiar characteristic is the way he sells numbers: with joy:

Until about midnight, after doing the correría de San Jacinto and del Pasaje in the morning and the throw of twelve to one in the doors of the hotels, in front of the theatres or by the boulevard of the Capitol, he shouted loudly, shamelessly, optimistically.

On December 24, while Panchito was counting the money from his daily work, he saw some children taking the candy from another street girl. The girl cried heartbrokenly because they were some sweets that she had been ordered from the house where she worked:

Panchito followed the crying one.
-Hey, what's your name?
The girl stopped and wiped her tears.
-Me? Marguerite
-And that sweet was your mom's?
-I don't have a mother.
-And Dad?
-Not either

This dialogue makes not only Panchito feel sorry for the girl, but also the reader: the meeting of the two children who share their misfortune of working at a very young age and being alone in the world. Because of this and the girl's crying, Panchito ran out and spent some of the money he had made selling lottery, on new candy for the girl. When the girl saw the boy's noble gesture, she asked him:

-How do I pay you? -she asked with shy sadness.
Panchito turned red and babbled:
-If you give me a kiss.
-No, no! It's bad!
-Why...?
-Why, because...?
But it wasn't Panchito Mandefuá who was convinced by reasons like this; and he held her by the shoulders and gave her
a couple of kisses full of gofio and mischief.

A kiss as a reward for his action, a kiss for the sweets bought. So Panchito continues his way knowing that he has spent part of his money saved in helping the girl, but happy for that gesture and for the kiss. As he walks, thinking about the rich things he's going to buy with the money he has left, a car ran him over and he dies instantly. This death, more than painful, the narrator makes it look like a prize when he says that night Panchito was invited to eat in the sky.

Source

In many countries of the world there are street children, those who take refuge under bridges, those who sleep wrapped in cardboard, those who spend the night in the open countryside with no shelter other than the sky. Those children whom you have probably passed by without looking at their miseries with fear that you will see yours, those who despite their young age, already know of hunger and hard work. Those children, like all children in the world, deserve a happy Christmas.

Children live this era with the illusion of gifts. They live it with the illusion of waiting for Santa or the Child Jesus, who will come with surprises, with something that will allow each child to accentuate their sense of faith. When a child writes his letter to the Child Jesus, he does so believing that the letter will reach its destination and that at dawn on the 25th, he will find his gift at the foot of the tree or under the bed. Let us not harm this illusion. There are already enough hopeless and sad people in the world. Even if it's not for us, let's do it for them, let's be generous and happy. Let us be children again.

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I hope you liked this post. It would be nice to know if you have a favorite Christmas story. Remember to vote for @adsactly as a witness and join our server on Discord. See you next time with a smile. ;)