Anjali Balika, 7, an abandoned child living in Balmandir, a semi-government children’s shelter, merely wishes to have a pink color jacket and shoes. Another child Rajesh Basyal wishes to get a vest. Hari Maya Rawal wishes to have white shoes for school. Isha Giri wants a jacket and Dinesh Basyal wishes to have a chocolate with the jacket.

The Christmas Wish Tree, which stands inside Hotel Yak &Yeti, the country’s premier five-star hotel, is full of light and small papers showing in writing the wishes of two dozens of unprivileged children living in Bal Mandair.

Thanks to Monika Petra Scheiblauer, the General Manager of Hotel Yak & Yeti, these simple wishes of underprivileged and abandoned children have found space in the country’s one of the reputed five-star hotels in the form of a Christmas Wish Tree.

They may be deprived of many necessary things, but what they wish for now is shoes, jackets and sweets. “I never think they wish just a candy. It touches my heart,” said Monika Petra Scheiblauer.

After visiting Bal Mandir and collecting the wishes, General Manager Monika Petra Scheiblauer, who has more than twenty years of working experience in different parts of the world, decided to display their wishes in the Christmas Wish Tree.

The tree includes individual child’s card, with photograph and gift wish. Guests of the hotel and members of the public are encouraged to sponsor a gift in the form of toys, clothing, school bags, shoes, chocolates and other such items or making a monetary donation to buy the selected present. Any guest can take the honor to fulfill the child’s wish by looking at their wish in the wish tree. Wish tree indirectly serves as Santa Claus gifting the children.

“The hotel will invite the children and hand over the presents on December 27,” said General Manager Monika Petra Scheiblauer.

On December 1, the Hotel also organized a program, season’s making and baking. During the program Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Nepal Mrs. W.S. Perera Ambassador, Rika Carmona, wife of Ambassador of Nepal To France Yves Carmona, president of Britain Nepal Society and Italy's Honorary Consul General to Nepal Pratima Pande, General Manager of Hotel Hyatt Regency and other people graced the event. They made cookies and other sweets and they were given a set of exclusive apron and hat and the gingerbread house to decorate.

Seasons making and baking commemorates the tradition of making decorated gingerbread houses, and cookies cutting which began in Germany about 200 years ago. After the publication of the renowned Brothers’ Grim Grimm fairy tale and Hansel and Gretel, German bakers began creating ornamented houses made from gingerbread. These Christmas treats flourished and arrived in the United States, where decorating gingerbread houses became a favorite way of celebrating Christmas for many families.

With the wish tree hanging wishes of underprivileged children from a shelter home and season making and baking, General Manager Monika Petra Scheiblauer has embarked on a new vision for Hotel Yak & Yeti.