Karma Christmas

Each year, these compassionate yogis create their own holiday traditions of comfort and joy.

By Alan Reder

That sense of appreciation began years ago, when she received assistance from the Parents Center, an agency in nearby Santa Cruz that teaches parenting skills to people whose troubles are ricocheting to their kids. Many of the clients come from abusive backgrounds and/or have become abusive themselves. In addition, they often suffer the effects of other hurdles such as poverty, addiction, and the emotional detachment that sometimes comes with a foster care background.

While Koch didn't face the latter handicaps ("I came from a normal, middle-class dysfunctional family," she laughs), she too had been abused as a child and sought the Center's help to tame her own parenting rage. Koch was so grateful for the aid that she wanted "to take full circle what they had offered me."

Thus the Christmas Project, suggested to Koch by her Center counselor, was born. "These parents are working very hard to learn healthy parenting skills because they love their children so much," she says. "Supporting and congratulating them was a way our family could contribute."

Every December, the three Koch children select new or near-new toys and clothes they aren't using and spend a day creatively wrapping them. They make gifts for the parents, too, and often prepare baskets or holiday dinners for delivery. In the beginning, the Koch brood took on as many as three families, depending on their size and needs. Eventually, the home-schooling co-op and parent-run preschool that the Koch family was involved in signed on, so that more Center families could be served.

These days, local businesses sometimes chip in. For instance, last year a neighborhood store helped the Kochs buy a skateboard and sweatshirt for a 14-year old boy. The boy's situation exemplifies the desperation of some Center clients. He had found his father, a heroin addict, dead from an overdose the previous Christmas Eve. His mother, herself an ex-addict, was working hard to provide for her children but had just been laid off.

For Koch, the project complements her family's holiday goal of spiritual reflection. It also teaches the children that to receive, one must also give. "Through the years, our children would receive thank-you letters. But we really wanted to be anonymous. We chose to just be Santa's helpers. I didn't really want [the recipients] to feel like they had to thank another person, so much as feel the abundance that life truly has to offer."

Wings of Warmth

If we assume the Santa story is factually correct, the tradition of delivering holiday gifts by air was established long ago. But if Mr. Claus ever retires and the NASA Goddard Flying Club takes over, expect a bunch of reindeer to be out of work.

For more than a decade now, the College Park, Maryland, group has combined a passion for aviation with the desire to help others. Their holiday program, Wings of Warmth, starts each November when the members begin collecting warm clothing, canned goods, and toys. They then ferry their cargo in a string of single-engine planes to folks living in mountain towns in their region.

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