“Man, we were happy. We gobbled down some pancakes, grabbed the presents from under the tree and went to see our new baby.”
We were all smiling at Danny. As shy as he was, he was smiling and talking about his little brother.
“You should see him. He’s so little and cute. We all got to hold him. No one wanted to put him down to open our presents. He yawns and tries to suck his thumb.”
It was then that our feelings about Danny’s Christmas gifts shifted. We had felt sorry for him when we thought he had only received three packs of baseball cards and a Hacky Sack, but he didn’t feel slighted at all, he only felt the fullness of his baby brother in his arms.
We all wished we had gotten as much.
“Our family will never forget this best Christmas ever. Other families may have had big dinners and lots and lots of presents to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but our family got to hold the baby.”
~Cynthia M. Hamond
The Butterscotch Bear
Generosity is not giving me that which I want more than you do, but it is giving me that which you want more than I do.
~Kahlil Gibran
Ah-ha! I finally found the perfect gift for Eric’s stocking. The butterscotch bear sat perched in a display near the store’s front window. In one hand it held a football, complete with the white laces, and a helmet in the other. To top it off, the bear wore an Ohio State scarlet and gray sweater—perfect for my young OSU football fan! After spotting the bear, I knew I’d have to sneak down there later to get it without any little people. I was so excited!
Each year, our family traveled an hour to the mall to gather our Christmas gifts for one another. My husband, David, and I would split up, taking one or two of the kids to buy for the other members of the family. Then, we’d meet at a designated time and switch kids to complete their lists.
After a fast food meal, the three kids finished their lists. David took the tired, but pleased, children to the car, where I would meet them after completing my specific task. The kids had been so good, but that would soon turn to grumpy bickering if they were forced to wait an excessive length of time. Thankfully, it wouldn’t take long because I knew exactly what I wanted and where it was.
Upon entering the little shop, the salesclerk greeted me with a cheerful smile. “May I help you find something?”
“Oh, no thanks,” I said confidently. “I was just in here, and snuck back without my kids to get what I needed.”
I hurried toward the shelf, ready to grab the little guy and go. Imagine my surprise! The bear was not there! I rummaged through all the other stuffed animals in the display—no butterscotch OSU bear anywhere.
I questioned the clerk, who replied, “Oh, I’m sorry. Someone bought that bear a little while ago, and we don’t have any more.”
Now I felt defeated. It had only been a couple of hours. Who could have bought that bear? Every person I passed became a suspect. I could search for something else, but I had already been in almost every store in the mall without seeing anything come close to the ideal gift. Besides, my kids were waiting in the car.
With a huge sigh, I scurried out of the mall to my expectant family.
On Christmas morning the kids opened all of their presents. Now it was time for Mommy and Daddy.
“Mommy, open mine first,” Eric beamed, carrying over his kid-wrapped gift.
“Okay. What’d you get me?”
“I’m not telling.” That was a great accomplishment. This was the first year he didn’t tell, or get tricked into telling every Christmas secret he knew.
I opened the package slowly. “Hmm... I wonder what it is,” I teased him.
He giggled, “Just open it and find out!”
As soon as the paper fell open, tears filled my eyes. Before me was the butterscotch OSU bear that I wanted for him. He purchased it for my bear collection.
“Do you like it?” His little face was so eager and proud. “I really wanted that bear, but I thought it’d be a good present for you.”
Choking back tears, I hugged him and said, “I love it, honey. Thank you. It really is the perfect gift.”
~Paula F. Blevins
The Gift
Kids spell love T-I-M-E.
~John Crudele
It was just an ordinary Christmas card, disappointingly plain to my eight-year-old eyes. I noticed first the dark colors and then the snow-covered scenery with a horse pulling an open carriage. It was a card that adults would give to other, not very interesting, adults. I couldn’t see its relevance to me.
My siblings and I each received a card, close to the end of our family Christmas celebration. I don’t remember much of what we had received earlier. I remember that I was wearing my favorite soft blue sweater, with a royal blue skirt, ruffled at the bottom. For our family picture I was even allowed to wear my hair down and unrestrained, a rare treat for one with naturally wavy and unruly hair. I remember that Mom was wearing a bold pink blouse, with ruffles encircling her neckline. The Christmas lights glistened off her wire-rimmed glasses. I also remember how excited we were to watch her open her gift, a brand new set of copper-colored canisters. They were perfect for her kitchen.
Earlier, our family had celebrated Christmas Eve at a German service at our church. This was the annual Christmas torture. While the rest of the year the services were in English, on this night—the night of unbearable waiting—the service was in a language we didn’t understand. “Lo How A Rose E’er Blooming,” sung in German, seemed to drag on forever. And then we went home for a traditional light supper of buns, cheese, cold cuts, and squares.
Finally, it was time to open our gifts. It is perhaps one of life’s ironies that the only gift I remember from that Christmas is the one that didn’t seem as exciting at the time. The only one that I couldn’t hold and play with.
The gift I remember is the card. Each of us—my sister, brother, and I—received an envelope with our name on it. I was puzzled. I had never received an envelope as a gift before. This was before the era of giving money or gift cards, and so I had no context in which to place this strange, white, two-dimensional gift box.
I opened the envelope and saw the picture. A picture clearly designed for adults and not for children. Inside was a generic Christmas message, its typed words as irrelevant to my eight-year-old mind as the picture on the cover. And below was my dad’s scrawling handwriting, his words a gift. “For your Christmas present, this year I promise to spend an hour each week with you, doing whatever you want to do.”
I looked up, not certain what this meant. Dad explained that each of us would have time with him each week—time that was all ours to plan. We could do something alone with him or could include our siblings. We could play table games, Barbies, or do an outside activity.
Over the next couple of weeks, we incorporated Dad’s gift into our lives. We played Sorry, Chinese Checkers, and Parcheesi. I picture these times as being idyllic, with our family calmly sitting around the coffee table and patiently taking turns. I suspect, however, that they were as noisy and chaotic as most of family life is.
We only managed to each take Dad up on his promise a couple of times. Three weeks after Christmas, my mother and I were in a car accident that killed her and left me in the hospital for three months. The promise of a structured one hour per week was quickly replaced with Dad single parenting three children, while simultaneously mourning his wife.
But while the structure changed, the gift remained—and remains with me still. In some ways, that Christmas promise has become more important with the passing of time. Dad’s gift was highly unusual in its time, showing a commitment to spend time with us and to get to know each of us individually. It dared all of us to step away from the usual practice of Christmas and to move closer to its true intent. It dared us to remember the importance of relationships and the depth of his love for us. As I prepare for Christmas with my son, it prompts me to find ways to incorporate the same love and presence into my celebrations wit
h him. To give to him what my dad gave to me... the gift of time.
~Heather Block
Winston’s Boy
It isn’t the size of the gift that matters, but the size of the heart that gives it.
~Eileen Elias Freeman
By late December in Anchorage, Alaska, the streets are sheeted in bumpy ice with crusts of snow mounding at the road shoulders. It made for tricky driving and tiring night shifts at work. I was eager to fall asleep, glad to be almost home. Just before turning off the main road for the final blocks to home—I saw the body.
The little dog was at the edge of the street and appeared undamaged except for the smallest bit of dried blood on his nose. Undoubtedly, he’d been hit by a car and there his life had ended. His coat was a lovely cinnamon, with thick rich fur that suggested a Chow ancestry. I checked the tag on his collar and learned that “Winston” had only been a couple of blocks from home when he died. He was small enough that I could have picked him up, but something made me hesitate and instead I left him there and drove alone to the address inscribed on the tag.
The front yard of the house had sleds and balls and assorted bright plastic toys. I went past these things with a lowered head, held my breath while I knocked, and sighed with relief when no young faces, nor any adults, came to the door. I thought about leaving a note, but again hesitated, not knowing what to write. How could a note let the parents know what had happened and yet not tell the children?
Winston’s tag had the phone number as well, so in the end, I simply left a message on the owners’ answering machine, giving my name and number, asking that they call me about their dog. Before going to bed, I called the animal shelter and asked that they pick up the body.
The sad situation was gone from my mind as I awoke and went back to work, but when I came home again, there were messages waiting on the answering machine. A young boy was calling over and over, wanting to know if I had a dog.
Yes, I had a dog. Jack was a large, strikingly beautiful Golden Retriever, feathered in every shade of yellow from the palest silvery gild to a honey red as burnished as Winston’s coat. With the dawning realization that the family must have called the shelter, I felt my mind lurch. Suppose the boy thought that I was the one who had hit his dog? I called him back with reluctance, dreading talking about his loss at all, hesitant to see his sorrow.
His voice sounded as shaky as I felt. “I was wondering if you have a dog,” he asked. “And if so, if I could give Winston’s Christmas presents... to your dog?”
Jack and I went over right away. The boy was older than I thought he’d be, maybe ten or eleven and he was alone at home. With the friendly enthusiasm typical of his breed, Jack went right up and plunged his face into the large grocery bag the boy was holding. Wrapped present after wrapped present came up, clasped gently in Jack’s jaws. Dog treats, a rawhide chew toy, a ball. With tears on his cheeks, the boy helped Jack pull the paper off each gift and inspect them one by one.
I don’t know if the boy told me his name. I couldn’t have remembered, could hardly trust my voice not to crack when I thanked him and drove Jack home with his new belongings. That boy’s profound sense of Christmas, wanting to give gifts in his grief, was an experience to keep in the heart forever and so, while it was a brief encounter and I was sad for his loss, I’ll always treasure that time I had with Winston’s boy.
~Lisa Preston
Santa’s Key
Childhood is the most beautiful of all life’s seasons.
~Author Unknown
Bounding down the stairs of our new home, Lucas and Hanna, with a sudden realization of a potential catastrophe, sought me out, clinging to me desperately with panicked eyes and urgently questioned, “How will Santa deliver presents to our new house if we don’t have a fireplace with a chimney?”
“Don’t worry,” and “He’s magic,” didn’t quite cut it. I needed an answer. An answer that would satisfy two very curious young minds. An answer that is grounded in reality yet clings beautifully to mystery. An answer that invites childhood to live in our home for as long as it wants to stay.
The room seemed to spin as my mind reeled back to those wonder-filled holiday memories from my own childhood: opening the little doors on a calendar one by one until the night Santa would arrive; composing my letter to him more thoughtfully than any school assignment. I’d even start prancing through the house singing “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” before the Thanksgiving table was cleared. So many of our traditions revolved around this eagerly anticipated arrival, I felt I must attend to the urgent query of my little ones.
And so the search began. First stop: our local library. I plopped myself down on the floor, surrounded by an avalanche of Christmas stories. Almost every book I perused displayed a bright, colorful illustration of that jolly old elf landing in the living room in a pile of soot. Great, no help there. Next, I braved the crowded department stores searching aimlessly for this elusive answer. What was I thinking? I was elbow to elbow with last-minute shoppers loaded down with their bags full of goodies, and there I was mumbling to myself, “Macy’s ain’t got any. Nobody’s got any.” No miracle on 34th Street for me.
I returned home empty-handed. Out of pure desperation, I finally found myself rummaging through, of all places, the sock drawer—a haven for all missing things. I don’t know what inspiration I expected to find there, but buried in the corner, I caught a glimpse of promise. It was an old key from the house in which I grew up.
I carefully threaded a red satin ribbon through the top and adorned it with a tag engraved “Santa’s Key.” When I presented this solution to Lucas and Hanna, their wide eyes and satisfied smiles assured me I had successfully granted their Christmas wish. They scurried around the house, dodging decorations, searching their stockings, and rooting through gift wrap until they found the perfect box in which to safely store the key until that special night. Now every year, the children dangle “Santa’s Key” outside on our doorknob with faith that it will turn for his magical hand on Christmas Eve, unlocking the doorway of tradition.
I’m glad I finally found a fitting use for that old key I had sentimentally stashed away all these years—that very same golden key which used to open the door to my parents’ house: the house full of Christmas past; the house where magic lived; the house in which the Santa of my childhood dwelled. So indeed, it truly is Santa’s key.
~Erin Solej
Too Many Santas
Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.
~Hamilton Wright Mabie
There was no snow at all that day,
Though Christmas was just days away.
The trees were bare, the grass was brown,
In short the kids were feeling down.
A rumor floated round the room,
That added to the frigid gloom.
This new idea was tough to hear,
And stole some of their Christmas cheer.
The rumor said with mocking tongue
That Santa was just for the young,
For little ones with lists all made
Not for big kids in the second grade.
So they were depressed in room 124
When the man in red walked through the door.
Should they resist the urge to now believe,
It being so close to Christmas Eve?
His cheeks were rosy, his dimples merry,
The usual beard and a nose like a cherry.
He smiled at them all and he moved toward the chair
And he sat as the whispers were filling the air.
Some hesitated and some gave a shrug,
But then as a group they all moved toward the rug.
“It’s him,” stated Zack, with commitment and zeal,
“I’ve seen lots of Santas, but this one is real!”
“How do you know?” whispered Rachel, unsure—
“He’s not like the Santa I saw at the store—
“I thought he w
as real, at least it seemed so,
With so many Santas it’s so hard to know.”
Santa talked to them all as they sat on the floor,
And he spoke of behaving and giving and more.
And they listened intently and then watched him stand,
But before he could leave, Nathan put up his hand.
“Yes?” Santa asked as he towered above,
And he pointed at Nathan with gleaming white glove.
“Santa,” asked the child with an uneasy grin,
“What we want to know, is—are you really him?”
And like a sudden shattering glass,
A silence fell upon the class.
The teacher was shocked as she stared at the child,
A question like that could send the class wild.
But a quiet remained and the children all waited
The question, they felt, was very well stated.
Briana was the first to speak
As she pointed gently toward his cheek.
“I’ve seen you Santa, in other classes,
But I don’t remember you with glasses.
“And yesterday your eyes were brown,
When I saw you in a store downtown
And now I see your eyes are blue—
So tell us Santa, which one is true?”
Then up spoke Chris with impish grin,
“I have to ask about your skin.
One day I saw you with your sack
In another place and you were black!
“How can Santa be both black and white,
With eyes of blue and brown, what’s right?”
“How can it be?” the children mused.
They were stumped, and angered and a bit confused.
“The real Santa,” stated James,
“Wouldn’t play these kinds of games.
So tell us, Santa—are you real or fake—
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Christmas Magic Page 22
