Monday, December 28, 2009

El Olentzero (the wintertime gift giver in the Basque country) paid his regards last week at Malachai's school. Now, Malachai knows the truth about all the Christmas gift-giving characters - - we tell it like it is from the beginning, but even so, this year's visit made an impression Malachai;He told us all about his encounter with El Olentzero later that afternoon when we picked him up from school.
he told us how he had gone with the rest of his class so that they could put in their gift requests;
he told us how Olentzero had asked him if he had been good this year,
and how he told Olentzero yes, he had been good.
then Malachai told us how he had started to cry, because he knew that he hadn't been only good all year long; so he admitted that he had also been bad, but that he had repented for the bad things that he had done.

"that is very valiant of you to admit" said Olentzero, "you will be getting lots of gifts this year"
apparently Malachai gained confidence from the kind words of praise from Olentzero, because then, it seems that he caved, and he told Olentzero that,
well,
all the other kids that had said that they had been good all year long . . . had actually been lying.
So after Malachai finished telling his story, we had some good dialogue with him,
including encouragement for his honesty,
and reproof for his attitude towards the other kids;

and we turned our heads and plugged our noses and snorted as we appreciated the humor in the account; and I wondered if Malachai would come up in Olentzero's dinner conversation that night.

6 comments:

Abigail said...

heehee - sweet Malachai - we both had a good chuckle over this one.

Heather Pelczar said...

HAHAHAHAHA!!! That is so funny! But what a tender heart toward his sin. What a sweet boy.

Unknown said...

I think for sure this will be one of those tales El -what's- his- name tells over and over...

darcie said...

this is a very dear post-I love the honesty of it all; hmmm, my little grandson may again sneak his way into a devotional or a women's talk-hope he doesn't mind?
happy new year to all you dear folks across the ocean. today Papi and I are driving to Comfort (hill country) for a bike ride and a visit to the "Tinsmith's Wife" (knitting shop)

Anonymous said...

We were very pleased that Malachai had the courage to tell the truth. However, it didn't surprise us at all when he told how the other children had been lying about being good all year. Jim and i can even hear the voice he was using.

I'm sure this will be told in many Spanish homes. God is using Malachai....

I couldn't read this to Jim without starting to chuckle and it took awhile to get the story told.
Love, Ginny

Amy Medina said...

Gil and I had a great laugh on this one, and we were with the Lefler's on Wednesday and told them the story and then THEY had a good laugh too! We don't know Malachai but we know his parents, so we can imagine where he got it from. :-)