The Christmas We All Deserve

Periods of lockdown in 2020 and 2021 were hard on all of us, and not only because of the danger presented by COVID. We couldn’t go to work. We couldn’t visit friends and family. Many of us felt like prisoners in our own homes. However difficult it was for adults, though, the situation children found themselves in was particularly cruel. Many young children who found themselves confined and separated from their friends felt as if they were being punished. Unable to understand the impact of a pandemic, young people couldn’t shake off the feeling that they’d done something wrong, and not being able to enjoy the outdoors or celebrate birthdays was the price they had to pay. 

Imagine the additional disappointment those children would have felt if they hadn’t been able to enjoy Christmas either. 

We didn’t want to imagine it, so in December 2020 we did everything in our power to make sure it didn’t happen. Unity in Diversity had to suspend our drop-in sessions during lockdown, of course, but with the support of our friends at Uniting Church Sketty, we were able to play Santa Claus to members of the UiD community in Swansea, delivering gifts, supplied by the church, throughout the city. It didn’t make up for being kept indoors for weeks on end, but it did put smiles on the faces of young people at the end of a year that had taken those smiles away. 

Everyone deserves a happy Christmas. Every child deserves to wake up on December 25th and know that someone cared enough to bring them a gift. If we have anything to do with it, every child will.