The Christmas Spirit

I love Christmas: the joy, the carols, the houses decorated with enough lights to throw a breaker, Salvation Army bell ringers, silly Santa hats, eggnog, live pine trees, snow, choral pieces, parties, nativity sets, the ornaments on the tree, candy canes, and snowmen, sledding, gingerbread houses and tinsel. It is the best time of year!

I remember a Christmas when I was 11 or so and I realize now that my parents went WAY overboard on our gifts (I am the oldest of four and we always had a pile of gifts on the big day). I have memories of piles of gifts surrounding the tree we had in the corner. If the pile wasn't higher than the third branch of the tree, we were having a tight year. But that year was a bit different and looking back now I think that my parents saw how focused our family was becoming on the gifts that we received.

About a week before Christmas, Dad and Mom gathered us as a family and told us that we were going to do something different this year. Each of us kids had three 'big' gifts each that year and we were going to get to open one of them early today. But there was a catch: the gift that we were going to open was to be donated to a local shelter. I can remember agonizing over that decision and I don't remember the two gifts that I kept that year. I do remember the green army helicopter that I finally choose to give up! I hope that I was as thoughtful then as I'd like to be now, but that probably wasn't the case. I bet I pouted for a couple of hours and my parents may have wondered if the damage to my character was already done.

Fast forward three years: my parents are going through a very ugly divorce and my mom is going to school and working full-time. We live in a two bedroom apartment which is an upgrade from the Salvation Army, where we had spent a nightmarish week earlier in the year. I'm struggling in a new school and the neighborhood is about as ghetto as Peoria, IL can get. Christmas is going to be very sparse. Mom pulled the oldest two of us aside and let us know that we're not getting much so that the younger two can have more. It's a depressing time for our struggling family.

I don't think I can express how grateful I am that during that Christmas because when Christmas came, we had three volunteers from a charity (I don't remember which) come to our house and give us gifts and food. At first they scared me because they wore biker outfits and looked pretty rough. (Are there biker charities?) I remember being shy and embarassed because we were so poor that total strangers were giving us gifts.

Now that I'm older I understand why those two Christmases are so important to my vision of the season. The whole point of Christmas for me is embodied in these two experiences. It is never about what is or isn't under the tree; it's about a Savior who came to live and die for us and gave us a gift we couldn't purchase ourselves, and our silly gift-wrapped presents are a small and meager attempt to emulate His divine gift to us all. I am grateful for my Saviour's love for me, who doesn't deserve or merit His attention. And yet He knows me and loves me and hopes I will return to Him! Truly and sincerely, merry Christmas!

"And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."