“A Christmas Wish”
by Kelvin Chin
Author
Meditation Teacher
When I was almost 3 years old in December 1953, my mom and dad dressed me in my warm winter clothes with my beanie and mittens, and took me to meet Santa Claus.
I had never met him before. I had only received presents from him that he had secretly left for me each of the previous two years. Somehow they were just there in my living room around the same time of year when it was cold outside. That’s all I knew.
I was really excited to finally meet him in person!
So my mom and dad bundled me into our 1952 Pontiac sedan and took me to a place where they said Santa was having meetings that day with all the children in our neighborhood. As luck would have it, he was only a few miles away from our home in Natick, Massachusetts at a new place called Shoppers’ World on Route 9. According to Wikipedia: “Shopper's World is an open-air shopping center in Framingham, Massachusetts. The original facility (spelled Shoppers’ World) is of historical significance as one of the first suburban shopping malls in the United States upon opening in 1951.”
Anyway, that’s where Santa was that day in December 1953. So that’s where we went.
And evidently lots of other people — especially young kids like me — knew he was going to be there too. Because by the time we arrived, there was a long line to talk with him. So on that cold and cloudy wintry day, we got in line.
I felt chilly on the outside but excited on the inside as I watched each child go up to Santa and sit on his lap for a few minutes and chat with him. We were far enough away so I couldn’t hear what each kid was saying. And I couldn’t really see his lips moving because he had this big white beard covering them, but I assumed he was talking with them because I could see his eyes smiling — almost twinkling — at each child.
When it was my turn, I sat on his lap. He was a huge man. At least he was huge compared to me when I was 2 years old.
And he asked me what I wanted for Christmas.
He said, “Kelvin, I will grant any wish you have.” My mom had introduced us when she brought me to him, so he knew my name. “Anything you can think of,” he said.
My immediate thought was that I wanted a baby sister. So I told Santa and he said, “So be it! You’ll have a baby sister soon, Kelvin. Have a Merry, Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!”
And that was it. Not a very long meeting because there were so many other children waiting for their chance to tell him what they wanted for Christmas. So I didn’t get to ask him anything about my sister — like what would she be like, when would she be coming, how would she get here, or anything.
But exactly 9 months later my baby sister was born.
And that’s how she and I met this lifetime. Evidently with a little help from Santa Claus.
Kelvin H. Chin is a Meditation Teacher, Life After Life Expert, and Author of “Overcoming the Fear of Death,” “Marcus Aurelius Updated: 21st Century Meditations On Living Life” and “After the Afterlife: Memories of My Past Lives.” He learned to meditate at age 19, and has been teaching Turning Within Meditation and coaching others in their self-growth for 50 years. He helps people understand their life challenges through their individual belief systems, and helps them find their own solutions. His past life memories reach back many centuries, and he accesses those memories in his teaching and his coaching in the same way all coaches draw on their own available experiences for perspective and effective analogies. He can be reached at www.TurningWithin.org.