Each year at Thanksgiving, wife Beverly likes to play a game. She asks us all to tell what we’re thankful for. This year she framed the question with Christmas.
As the comments came from around the table — 14 of us — I was to be last.
I remembered the electric train I got one year, already on its track wound around the living room when I awoke. Dad was as excited as was I. “I’ll be the engineer and you can be the conductor,” he said. At age five or six, I thought being the conductor was important, and didn’t fuss with him running the train.
Another year, along about 1951, on Christmas morning I was delighted to see a shiny new bicycle sitting by the tree. Just what I wanted.
This year, as I listened to everyone talk about gifts, family, even food, I settled on what was the most meaningful Christmas present I ever received.
A few years ago Beverly laid a box in my lap. Another shirt, I thought. Maybe a book; it was heavy enough. I peeled back wrapping paper and a layer of tissue. A picture frame laid upside down in the box. Probably a nice photo of our grandkids.
On turning it over, I looked at the images. I was taken back; tears filled my eyes. They were drawings of Dad, one of him on board a ship bound for England during World War II; another of him in his field laboratory in France; a third of him and his buddies on bicycles “somewhere in France,” the common comment that accompanied anything to do with the war in Europe.
The fourth really got me. It showed me snuggled up against Dad about age 5 wearing a little sailor’s hat. He wore a jacket and fedora.
I even got a little teary when telling about my memorable gift.
LITERALLY millions of words are written about Christmas each year. Never do we want to forget its real purpose, to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
But, gifts given and received are a very big part of the celebration.
Ones such as Beverly conceived and had prepared for me, have special meaning that will remain etched in my mind — and can be seen on the wall of my refuge at home — forever.
Such gifts connect us with the past or an important event in our lives.
That, more than anything else, is what the secular part of Christmas is all about, pleasing loved ones in a personal and meaningful way.
