Christmas comes from the heart

To the editor:
Christmas in Sun Chang. It has been cold and snowy here in the mountains. Not as bad as some areas to the north which had almost 10 inches of snow, but cold enough to give one a little bit of pause. Korean Christmas is a much more subdued affair.

There are not a large amount of lights or lighting displays and the ones that you can find are often part of a church program. Still, there are small patches of colored lights here and there and part of the fun is walking down the street trying to find them. Often it is a small string of 10 lights or so in a window twinkling away.
It is Monday morning here that I write this. I came to school at my regular time. On the way I met two of my students heading into the main part of the town. They were heading off to buy Christmas decorations for a small tree they were decorating. I helped them on their endeavor and hurried to the school. My students had adopted a small scrawny Korean pine tree.
When I arrived, it had a few decorations, mostly the commercial type of red balls and plastic Santas. But the kids were actively engaged in trying to decorate the tree. Using a small broom two girls were flinging snow over the branches. Trying hard not to knock the decorations off. Of course they wanted to know if I had any decorations and it became a little difficult to explain that I had none to offer. But I made it to my office and quickly cut a small snowflake out of a scrap sheet of paper.
My snowflake and I went back out, I in my indoor sandals with my jacket on. The students were thrilled. I hung the snowflake on a branch and then we gathered around for a group picture. As always there was a student covered in extra garlands and lots of laughs and giggles.
Charles Shultz has immortalized the Charlie Brown tree. This tree was one such tree: a Korean pine. My students were worried that they did not have a lot of decorations. I sketched the story of the Charlie Brown tree for them. As the sun came up higher over the mountains the bright light and simple decorations carried that profound message of what Christmas is really to be about. It is a time for simple pleasures, lots of laughs, and the fun of being together. We had a small snowball fight; chased each other around with a broom and took a picture. Most important of all though was the fact that my students had done this on their own. Without any prompting from the adults. Christmas truly comes from the heart.