By Heidi Isaza

A year ago families that couldn’t make ends meet at Christmas gathered at a White Center elementary south of Seattle to celebrate the holidays. This year local need is even greater as unemployment jumps to 8.8 percent in Washington State, compared to 7.2 percent last Christmas.

No one seemed to mind the frigid weather outside, or that Christmas had come and gone nearly a month earlier. In fact, children and families began arriving at Mt. View Elementary School in White Center well before the event was scheduled to begin.

The Christmas celebration at Mt. View Elementary was slated for mid-December, but unexpected snow in December 2008 forced the event to be postponed into the new year. Yet children gathered with unbridled enthusiasm despite the delayed festivities. For many this would be the biggest celebration of the holiday season.

The event, which featured games, arts and crafts, and other activities, was organized jointly by White Center’s Mt. View Presbyterian Church and the elementary school. As children entered the gymnasium, a mountain of board games greeted their dancing eyes. Monopoly to Mousetrap, and Candy Land to Connect Four—all gifts from World Vision—waited for their new owners.

Sitting at one table was Maria and her children, Jose, 5, and Soledad, 4. The family lives in a small apartment, sustained by the modest salary Maria’s husband earns as a chef. Maria grapples with her budding English, her eyes dart around the room as she attempts to interpret the words coming from the loudspeaker. She glanced at Jose, hoping he understood more of what was said than she did.

Maria and her children had just experienced their first white Christmas, and were doing their best to adjust to the arctic weather that welcomed them to Washington. “We just arrived from Mexico,” she shares. The children were born in the United States, but Maria took them to live with family in Mexico for three years while she worked through the paperwork to return to the U.S.  

It’s difficult for Maria to start over at 32, and to raise her children away from the support of her friends and extended family. “I make sacrifices so that they can be here and so they can study here (in the United States),” she says.

While Maria might not understand everything that is going on around her, her kids did notice the boxed games. Soledad set her sites on one game. “I want the princess one,” she says in Spanish. Her mother laughs a little. “Because she is a princess,” she says, rubbing her daughter’s rosy cheek.

Cutting Corners at Christmas

Maria and her children were just one of many families scraping by that day. Among the others was Brian Past. “It was a bit slimmer,” says Brian about the Christmas celebrations he and his wife had just had with their two daughters, Loleina, 7, and Kailani, 3. “But they aint into all the presents and stuff yet.”

Brian and his wife work to provide for their family, he as a chef and she as a grocery store clerk. Despite two incomes, the family budget doesn’t allow for a lot of luxuries like gifts.   

Brian is relieved that the girls don’t care about the cost of their gifts. But they do care about the contents. “If it’s Cinderella or princess, it’s hers,” says Brian, talking about what his daughters dream about.

At the end of the evening, Kailani chose a set of princess puzzles. She was all smiles as she looked at the purple box that contained different puzzles featuring the Disney princesses. “My favorite princess is Belle,” she said.

More than Just a Game
When it came time to choose his game, 13-year-old Francisco knew exactly what he wanted. “I got Monopoly because it teaches you to run a business and I want to be a CEO one day,” he says.

Francisco still isn’t quite sure what business he would like to have, “maybe of my own soccer team,” he says. His indecision, however, does not deter him from working towards his dream. For now, he will have to strengthen his business strategies by playing with his 9-year-old brother, Abraham.

Their mother, also named Maria, received a much-needed gift as well—a bag of household items, soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, and deodorant, among other things. Like Maria, each family at the celebration received a bag full of everyday items. World Vision donated the household and personal hygiene items as well.

“It’s always needed,” she says about the items in the bags. “The shampoo and soap because these boys are in the age where they want to take a bath and do their hair all the time, and they also both play soccer, so there is always lots of clothes to wash,” she says with a smile.