Most of us know Christmas as a time of joy, presents and family reunions. While that is true for many, it dawned on me this year that the same does not apply to my Filipino helper (again I’ll refer to her here as Geraldine). Having to spend 2 years away from home and family at a time, she misses spending Christmas with her family every year.
So this year I decided to start something. I told her that I’ll give her a budget and she could use that money to buy whatever Christmas presents she wanted for her kids back in the Philippines.
At first she looked at me like I was crazy. How was she going to do that from here?
Then I explained that we could buy it online and have it delivered directly to her house in the Philippines. Once we got the logistics out of the way, I asked her then what her kids wanted for Christmas?
She thought about it for a while and with an exhale she admitted she didn’t know. I probed her a little more and she then suggested instead that I send the money to them and let them buy whatever they wanted. My heart sank at that suggestion. Here was Geraldine having worked so many years abroad to send money home, wanting to do what she had grown used to doing in the past 2 years. To send money back and let them buy whatever they wanted rather than to pick the presents.
I told her if that’s what she wanted I’ll send the money. I however explained to her the joy of being able to pick your own gift for your kids, the joy of letting them know that mommy picked it and perhaps one day when she goes home to the Philippines she will be able to see the very gifts she picked.
She was sold and decided to call her kids back home and ask them what they wanted.
As Christmas inched closer I sat with her in front of the computer as she browsed the thousands of things online to buy for her kids. She settled on a few.
A pair of badminton rackets for her 9 year old daughter.
A watch for her 7 year old son.
And for her 4 year old daughter who loved Disney’s Frozen: A Frozen doll.
Everything went well until a few days later we were told that the Frozen doll was out of stock. So we sought alternatives but for some reason almost everything Frozen was out of stock.
After looking around a little more we finally found something else she thought her daughter would love. A Barbie doll that looked like this.
We made the order and was told that it would reach just in time for Christmas.
What has it been like so far?
We were in Phuket when the first presents arrived, the watch and the badminton rackets. I made a call home for Geraldine so she could talk to her very happy kids.
Geraldine’s son loved the watch. He loved it so much that he didn’t want to wear it to school. Only at home.
Her 9 year old daughter was so happy when she received her badminton rackets she skipped going to school and spent the entire day playing badminton with her cousin.
Geraldine’s 4 year old daughter though cried. She cried because everyone else had gotten their present but hers hadn’t come yet. At the time of writing, she hasn’t received her present yet but I’ve just been sent an email that said it’s in the mail.
She’ll receive it soon.
After Geraldine hung up on the call with her kids, I saw her lean gently on the wall as a smile lit up her face. I could tell what she was thinking. She was painting a picture in her head of her kids playing with their presents. Her daughter playing badminton outdoors and her son constantly checking what time it is. This was the first Christmas in years that she had the chance to buy gifts for her kids.
The smile on her face was worth the few hundred bucks I spent and more.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space