November 2012
The top of the Christmas tree reached to within inches of the ceiling. At the top of the tree the fairy stood, proud and serene, as she had for the past five years; her bright tiara upon her head and her slightly dented magic wand in her hand. But five years of being stuffed casually into a black bin bag on Twelfth Night with the rest of the decorations was taking its physical toll on the fairy and she knew that she could not expect to occupy the top spot for very much longer.
In fact the very next day she found herself consigned to the bottom of the cardboard box and taken along with a lot of other odds and ends in dad's car to the local charity shop. From there she was placed on the top shelf of the shop, along with various other Christmas ornaments, to await someone prepared to offer her a new home.
She didn't have to wait very long. A well dressed man in his thirties who happened to be dropping off some unwanted items saw the fairy and decided she would be the perfect decoration for the top of the family Christmas tree. How his little girl would love it!
However, when he arrived home the little girl was anything but pleased with the slightly bedraggled fairy.
'Oh daddy, how could you?', she wailed. 'She's just a second hand toy from a charity shop with a bent wand and a faded dress. Can't we afford a new fairy?'
So it was that the fairy ended up back in the same charity shop on the same shelf and so she waited and waited.
Then one day, just a few days before Christmas, a young lady came into the shop and was instantly attracted to the little fairy with the tinsel tiara. The girl wore faded jeans and an anorak that had seen better days but she still had an air of confidence in her bearing and in the light in her eyes.
'Can I have the little fairy with a broken wand please?' she asked. 'I know a little girl who would just adore it.'
Later that afternoon after the young woman, whose name was Molly, had finished her part time job, she went to pick her daughter up from school. On foot and, of course, there was no way they could afford a car.
As she walked her daughter, Molly wondered what sort of Christmas they would have. Her husband Jim had been made redundant a couple of months ago – what a Christmas present! And so they couldn't afford to give their little girl many presents this year. However, she had recently seen the Disney film of 'Pinocchio' and had been absolutely enchanted with the fairy in it.
Perhaps this fairy might bring back some of the sparkle to her face. They'd had tried to hide their troubles from her, but obviously even a child realises that times are hard.
On Christmas morning when Molly and Jim saw the look of sheer joy on their daughter's face as she unwrapped the present and placed the fairy on the top of the ancient Christmas tree, they simply looked at each other and realized that perhaps things weren't so bad after all.
When it came down to it, they all three still have each other and that's what Christmas is all about, isn't it?