A Christmas Tale

A fictional Christmas story.

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It was a "Christmas shopping" weekend. You know the kind. We had put off too long that necessary buying spree for everyone we know and it was now or never. So we joined the seemingly millions of others in the same boat and crowded into the mall to start our quest.

First it was the toy store. All those little kids in the family need something new to play with because the toys that already have their rooms half filled are now boring. I wondered how long the little angels would enjoy the shiny new toy before it joined the heap of boring with the rest of them. It was nice to know that their mother would require a "thank you, Gramma" from them (odd ... why is a "Thank you Grampa" never included?), so we would get a sense of proper gratitude ... sort of. Of course, the toys they wanted were either not available or equivalent to our annual gift budget, so I wondered further how grateful they'd be in any form for the toys they didn't really want.

For Uncle Bill and Aunt Nan, we stopped at the Hickory Farms store. You know the one. Sausages and the like. Mmm, good. Ought to last them, oh, a week or so. But they liked that stuff, so that would be good. Grampa Joe wasn't really all there anymore, but we stopped in to the watch store and got him a pocket watch. He'd like that ... I guess.

So we trekked on like this through the shopping nightmare picking up items that Beverly would love but her husband would hate or things that would simply add to the excess that Carrie and Jim already had and, well, it just didn't seem conducive to Christmas. And what, do you suppose, were the chances that anyone anywhere would get me something that I wanted?

Why were we doing this? Why were we buying things for people that they didn't really need and maybe didn't even want to celebrate Someone else's birthday? Hey, didn't these people know that Jesus wasn't even born on Christmas? And why did this "season" start back in October? Why were we spending all this time, money, and aggravation on this silly exercise while enduring those mundane Christmas carols piped everywhere? I mean, we live in Arizona! We are not dreaming of a white Christmas ... not if we have any sanity left. What was the point?!

The song changed and I heard, "Hark! The herald angels sing, 'Glory to the newborn King'." I took pause. The next one was a Sinatra tune: "Joy to the world! The Lord is come. Let earth receive her King!" And it hit me. Complaining to myself about the lousy spirit of Christmas, I had forgotten the Spirit of Christmas. Attempting to gain an other-worldly perspective on gift-giving, I had slumped into a totally worldly viewpoint. It's not about me. It's not about the gifts or the songs or the crowd or the money. It's not about giving or getting. It's not about a day of the year or even what songs are sung when.

I realized (again, it seems) that Christmas (regardless of when it is recognized) is the celebration of the arrival of the Greatest Gift of all ever given to mankind. Life was a good gift, but eternal life was much, much better. The gift of the arrival of the Son of God demanded celebration. And said celebration was not about me either. It wasn't about whether or not they were grateful or needed or wanted or any such thing. As long as my heart was in celebrating Christ, I would have a successful Christmas ... even if that cute little 2-year-old grandchild enjoys the box more than the doll.