Harbor cruise a prelude to a wish

As the vessel Camelot cruised through Newport Harbor on Wednesday night, Christmas was everywhere. White lights adorned most of the vessel; almost 200 children ate pasta, veggies and fried chicken with their families; and halfway through the evening, Santa Claus hopped aboard and handed out gifts.

It was all for one reason: to give the kids, all beneficiaries of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, a good time and a little bit of hope. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department and local businesses sponsor the event each year, and numerous deputies attended.

The foundation’s aim is to fulfill the wishes of children suffering from cancer. They will receive their wishes when they finish their treatments.

“It’s a beautiful time,” said Mark Pilon, president and chief executive of the foundation’s Orange County and Inland Empire branch. “These are all pending families — the kids haven’t had their wish yet. It keeps them really engaged, to let them know there’s something to look forward to.”

The Wish Kids Choir, a new group for this year’s cruise that consists of children who have had their wishes fulfilled, sang carols and hopeful songs to the other children. Between numbers, parents told stories about how getting a wish had given their children a way to hold on.

Wish Kids took turns soloing, as children and parents packed the halls to watch.

One of them, Allen Michael, a survivor of brain cancer who has had three wishes granted by the charity, sang “Frosty the Snowman” with the whole group as backup.

When the singing finished, a flash of lights in the distance signaled the arrival of Santa Claus, who pulled up in a fireboat with a snowman in tow. Children yelled and ran downstairs to the lower level to try to meet him as soon as he stepped on board.

Santa and the snowman then went upstairs and handed out gifts to lines of children eager to meet them, talk to them, and sometimes climb all over them, like 2-year-old Nathan Medrano, who stared with curiosity at the snowman before the lure of telling Christmas wishes to Santa became too strong to resist.

One child still waiting for her wish was 5-year-old Megan Dillalla. Her parents said she had liver cancer when she was a 1-year-old and has been surviving with a transplanted liver for 4 years. As her siblings played in and around a Christmas tree nearby, Megan said she was going to go on a three-day cruise full of Disney characters.

Tonight is “amazing — it’s absolutely amazing,” said mother Ellyra. “With everything you go through … [Make-A-Wish is] always there for you.”