At Christmas

By Edgar Guest 

A man is at his finest
     towards the finish of the year;
He is almost what he should be
     when the Christmas season is here;
Then he's thinking more of others
     than he's thought the months before,
And the laughter of his children
     is a joy worth toiling for.
He is less a selfish creature than
     at any other time;
When the Christmas spirit rules him
     he comes close to the sublime.

When it's Christmas man is bigger
     and is better in his part;
He is keener for the service
     that is prompted by the heart.
All the petty thoughts and narrow
     seem to vanish for awhile
And the true reward he's seeking
     is the glory of a smile.
Then for others he is toiling and
     somehow it seems to me
That at Christmas he is almost
     what God wanted him to be.

If I had to paint a picture of a man
     I think I'd wait
Till he'd fought his selfish battles
     and had put aside his hate.
I'd not catch him at his labors
     when his thoughts are all of pelf,
On the long days and the dreary
     when he's striving for himself.
I'd not take him when he's sneering,
     when he's scornful or depressed,
But I'd look for him at Christmas
     when he's shining at his best.

Man is ever in a struggle
     and he's oft misunderstood;
There are days the worst that's in him
     is the master of the good,
But at Christmas kindness rules him
     and he puts himself aside
And his petty hates are vanquished
     and his heart is opened wide.
Oh, I don't know how to say it,
     but somehow it seems to me
That at Christmas man is almost
     what God sent him here to be.

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Remembering the Savior

Author Unknown

Sometimes in the busyness of the season, the shopping, the baking, the wrapping, the traveling, the gatherings we forget the Savior. It is supposed to be about Him, yet He isn’t usually invited to this party. Many years ago, a young girl remembered the true reason for the season.

"One busy day during the Christmas season, I found myself hurriedly running from one store to another with three children in tow. The frenzy of the season and all of its activities were bearing down and had left me tired and exhausted. On one of our last stops, I quickly pushed past the aisle of Christmas decorations, despite the protests of my children, so that I could soon return home. At that moment, I realized that my daughter was missing. A sudden surge of panic came over me, but as I turned to look for her, I heard her call out to me.

“Oh, Mommy,” she exclaimed “Look!”

There was my daughter standing before a light-up yard nativity scene. In the midst of busy shoppers pushing past, she slowly knelt before the Baby Jesus. The shoppers, still passing by, did not even notice one small girl kneeling before the manger. I reverently watched as she looked on lovingly at the Baby and spoke quiet words to Him. It was as though time stopped for me that night. While the crowds thronged on through the store, there was only a mother, with tears in her eyes, whose heart swelled with love for her daughter and her Savior, and a little girl who took the time to stop, remember and admire the precious Christ child.

When she was through, Nicole rose to her feet and walked back to join me. As she slipped her hand in mine and we turned to walk away, I said a silent prayer of gratitude to my Heavenly Father for this wonderful gift of a daughter and this sacred Christmas experience. I was reminded of a scripture in Isaiah 11:6 “…and a little child shall lead them.” With all the wisdom of a six year old, Nicole led me by the hand that night out of a busy store and into a more Christ filled Christmas.”

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Holiday Gift Rekindles Memory of Son

By Van Johnson

March 12, 1999, was the date of the long-awaited return of our son, Eric, who had just completed an LDS Church mission. The excitement of meeting him at the airport after his long flight from South America will never be forgotten. He had grown up and become a man. The mother's embrace of a son just returned from a two-year absence was never to be forgotten. Watching Eric was fun as he studied how the family had changed, his younger brothers truly a head taller, his sisters and older brother now with so much in common. There was much to catch up on and many fun activities to be planned. Trips skiing and fishing were discussed with his brother-in-law.

And what a command of the Spanish language he had! Eric seemed so happy to be at home and was ready to re-enter school on a Presidential Scholarship. He explained that while his mission was very successful and filled a very important part of his life, he declined a request by his mission president to stay an extra month, telling him he felt an urgency to get back to be with his family.

The activities of the next week, while so familiar to many LDS families, are all a blur now: the interview with the stake president and honorable release, the homecoming, family and friends, and the reacquaintance with our son, brother and friend.

The euphoria was short-lived. Then came the crushing blow. Eric experienced a shortness of breath and tightness in his chest that some suggested might be due to altitude adjustment. Visits with our doctor and an X-ray lab exposed a much more serious condition: a grapefruit-size cancerous growth in Eric's chest.

Our focus changed overnight from fun family activities to searching out the best doctors available and to identifying and curing Eric's problem. Our family had been spared serious medical problems and the "C" word, and the possible ramifications were new to us. While we knew Eric's condition was serious, the process of really understanding how serious took us days and weeks to fully grasp.

We surrounded Eric with love, tenderness and support as he fought for his life. Eric was strong and had determined he would win this battle and would move on with his life. Despite the best efforts of modem medicine and numerous petitions for divine intervention, Eric slipped from this life less than two months after his return home. We were not prepared for his sudden passing, and we were left with a profound sense of shock and disarray. This was not Eric's destiny. It was not supposed to turn out this way.

The months following Eric's death and funeral provided time for healing. We learned to understand the heartbreak and pain faced by many others who have also lost loved ones. Many thoughtful and caring individuals comforted us as we dealt with our great loss. Eric had many friends from his mission who wrote kind words of condolences and support. We especially enjoyed the sharing of stories involving Eric that helped us understand the man he had become. For our family, there were the lingering, wishful thoughts of "if only" and "why didn't we?"

We had his mission journals and photographs that were very special and comforting, but in all of the confusion during the short time he was with us after his mission, we had failed to capture any videos or voice recordings.

Our 1999 Christmas holiday was not the cheerful celebration we had so eagerly anticipated. Instead, our Christmas season was subdued and filled with tears. Eric's personalized stocking was hung with the other family stockings, but this year his was empty.

Christmas Day dawned with traditional present-opening and family visiting. After the midday meal, everyone settled down for some quiet time. I took the opportunity to take a short walk. Passing our mailbox, the thought came to me to look inside. I realized there would be no mail because of the Christmas holiday, but I looked in anyway, and to my surprise, found a stack of letters and an express package. The mail must have been delivered on Christmas Eve and had not been retrieved. The package caught my immediate interest. It was addressed to the family from someone in Arizona. Inside the package I found a short note along with an audiotape. The note read:

"Dear Johnson Family

“My name is Nelson Phelps. Eric was my third companion on my mission in the area of La Pastora (Venezuela) where he was Zone Leader. He and I were together for only about five weeks before he was transferred to San Cristobal.

“Anyway, to make a kind of long story short, one P-day Eric gave me this tape to tape over to send to my family because I didn't have one to send. However, I never used it and forgot all about it until I was packing up to go home about two months ago, I decided that I would send this for Christmas so that you could have a Christmas present from myself and Eric. I hope you enjoy this.

“Love,
Nelson Phelps"

I immediately returned home and gathered the family together to listen to our son Eric's Christmas message to his family taped 23 months earlier. This tape was Eric's first and only attempt to record a message to us. Following the taping he didn't feel it was done well enough to send and eventually offered it to his companion to tape over.

This precious tape had been miraculously kept safe during the remainder of Elder Phelps' mission and then so thoughtfully sent to us to arrive on Christmas Day. We shed tears of joy as we listened to our son share his feelings and experiences and his admonition to his younger brothers to appreciate the blessings of America as they prepare for their future missions. He sang songs in both Spanish and English, including the National Anthem, to express his feelings towards his homeland.

This was an incredible Christmas gift to our family from a loving Heavenly Father who knew of Eric's short earthly mission. By this and many other ways, Heavenly Father touched our lives in love and tenderness to help us through a very difficult loss.

The memory of the special circumstances of receiving this tape on Christmas Day will always be cherished. At every future Christmas I envision bringing out this tape to again rekindle this special connection with our son Eric. In the midst of sorrow and grieving, the receipt of a very special, surprise Christmas gift brightened our family's Christmas holiday.

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The Christmas of the Rag Dolls

By N. Dee Bosen

My cheeks tingled with excitement in the brisk December air, the world was my oyster. Christmas was the pearl nestled deep inside my soaring spirit.

It was 1949, and my first job and regular paycheck meant this was one year I wouldn't have to be satisfied giving homemade gifts. My coat swings rhythmically with my happy steps. I looked at the handsome young man beside me. I was wearing his ring. It encircled my finger just as his love encircled me in a warm, ever-present glow. Bob carried the gifts we had carefully purchased, each one lovingly selected for a special family member. Together we would create a memorable Christmas.

Near the street corner stood a bell-ringing Santa. A donation dropped into his bucket increased my belief that I had the true spirit of this holiday season.

We arrived at my home and carefully placed the beautiful foil-wrapped gifts under the tree. My young sisters and brothers gave appreciative "ooh's" and "aah's." The little ones were bundled off to bed.

After the merriment had settled into a hushed silence, we went into the kitchen. There at the table, with skeins of yarn, scrap materials, scissors and thread, sat Mom and Dad, busily making something. Mom looked up and asked if we would like to help. In her hands she had what looked like a doll, a rag doll. It was. It was a rag doll! A homemade-looking thing, with a face that was too pale. The doll Dad held was no better. A faceless, limp, horrible little thing!

"Come on, pull up a chair," Dad said. "Maybe you can help me get the face right on this one. Which hair looks best? Yellow? Brown? How about some black braids?"

How could they? How could they embarrass me like this in front of my fiancé? Homemade rag dolls for Christmas? Surely, they could do better than that. Weren't things beginning to look up for us? Dad had returned to work after a six-month illness. There hadn't been even a suggestion of another homemade Christmas.

I wanted to cry as I glanced around the room. There stood the galvanized water bucket with the long-handled dipper beside it. Faded curtains on the cupboard shelves hid the home-canned foods. The old kerosene lamps were in their usual place atop the unpainted orange crates.

I was jolted from my thoughts by a deep voice cheerfully answering.

"I like the yellow hair best." Bob gave my blonde curls a quick tug. Picking up the yarn, he clumsily formed it around the pale-faced little rag doll. Pulling a worn wooden chair toward the table, he offered me a seat, then settled himself into an old bentwood chair. It was soon obvious that he had never used an embroidery needle, and the knots and tangles in the yam told me he was unfamiliar with such things. Model airplanes were more his line of handiwork.

Working with hushed voices, we spent hours fashioning bright scraps and tiny stitches into rag dolls. Quietly they were placed under the Christmas tree. Somehow, they didn't seem out of place there; the spiral tin can icicles, the red and green paper chains, the lopsided star that shone with crushed fool’s gold and yellowed glue all blended to create a Christmas-card effect.

I forgot the embarrassment of shedding ropes that crisscrossed the room, fastened in the corners of calcimined walls. A little wooden spool tank with a rubber band motor sat on the slivered floor, its treads carefully carved as Dad notched the rims of empty thread spools. The gifts Bob and I had purchased faded into nothingness.

It was long past midnight when Bob kissed me goodnight and stepped into the cold wintry darkness. Wearily I climbed into bed beside my sleeping sisters. Marilyn's little button nose peeked out from the heavy homemade quilts. Kathleen's blonde hair made a silken web over her cheeks. In another room, David snuggled into the narrow cot with Wayne. I could picture Harry, in his bed, pretending to be asleep.

In the kitchen, Dad gave another stir to the coal stove. Mom still worked at her sewing basket. It would be several hours before they were through. The sun would rise on still busy hands.

I awakened in the morning to the sound of a wooden spool tank clumping across the barren floor and the happy shrieks of young children. As I came into the room, I saw two little girls, their faces radiant, clutching the rag dolls. The foil-wrapped gifts went unnoticed.

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Cold, Hot, Far, Farther

By Norman Lyde

In December 1969, I was attending officer candidate school in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. This was a six-month school designed to take soldiers and make them officers and gentlemen. Most of the soldiers had gone home on Christmas leave. The few of us who were left were assigned special jobs that only an officer and a gentleman can perform — mopping the floors, cleaning the toilets and picking up cigarette butts.

On Christmas Eve, we were given a special present by the first sergeant — guard duty. Three of us were assigned to guard valuable military property — the empty barracks where the soldiers slept who were now home with their families enjoying the holidays. Each of us would be on duty for two hours and off duty for four.

The temperature outside was around eight degrees. There was a foot of snow and the cold Oklahoma wind blew right in my face no matter which direction I turned. How many times can you walk around an empty building in two hours making sure all the doors and windows are locked?

There was a Christmas tree in the guard house, but it’s hard to feel the Christmas spirit when you are a thousand miles from home and far from your family.

As I walked around the barracks for the 37th time, I told myself, “Hold on. It won’t be like this next Christmas.” And sure enough, it wasn’t.

It was worse.

Instead of being a thousand miles from home, I was 8,452 miles from my family in the jungles of Vietnam. Instead of being on guard duty in eight-degree weather, I was walking through the bush carrying my M-16, ammo belt, ruck sack, steel pot, bug juice and C-rations in 100-degree weather.

I was an artillery forward observer assigned to an infantry company. On Christmas Eve, we had been flown by helicopter to a landing zone deep in the jungle. Our orders were to find the headquarters of a Viet Cong battalion and engage the enemy. The jungle in that part of the country was very thick. Hacking our way through the jungle with machetes, it took us about seven hours to walk two kilometers.

As we got closer to our destination, the men became increasingly nervous. All the soldiers were breathing heavily, safeties were off, and fingers were on the triggers. Although it was Christmas Eve, all the men could think about was what would happen when AK-47 bullets started flying through the air. When we finally reached the enemy bunkers, imagine our disappointment when we discovered they were empty. The Viet Cong had fled.

Suddenly a message came over the radio. If we could get back to the landing zone in one hour, we would be flown back to our home base. A special USO show would be presented. USO meaning … American girls. Remember it took us seven hours to reach the bunkers. The mosquitos were thick, the ground was covered with leeches, the bamboo needles pricked our skin. The exhausted men made it back in about 30 minutes.

Our mail was waiting for us and it was loaded with Christmas presents. I guess Santa had flown in by helicopter. I opened my package from home very carefully; it took about three seconds. It was filled with a real treat that I hadn’t eaten in six months — popcorn balls. My grandmother in Florida had also sent a fruitcake, but it never made it. I guess some hungry Viet Cong devoured it in his bunker.

There was a 24-hour cease-fire. On Christmas Eve we sat on our cots listening to Christmas carols played by helicopters flying overhead. Around midnight the artillery batteries put on a show. It was a Christmas I will never forget.

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Great with Child

By Colleen Pedersen

The journey was a relatively short one — an excursion to her husband's land of birth for a two- or three-day sojourn. It wouldn't have been such a difficult journey had the woman not been so great with child, but they needed somewhere to stop, and there was no place to be found. She was desperate, and her husband didn't know what to do. Even the omnipresent gas stations were closed for the Christmas holiday.

No, this wasn't the road to Bethlehem, but looking back on the events of December 25, 1981, I know that Mary on her donkey must have felt, at some point of her arduous journey, the same way I did that Christmas morning in our old green Dodge Coronet.

It was still very dark, cold and quiet when my husband and I carried our blanket-swaddled 3-year-old to the car and began an excursion that would soon become unforgettable. The roads were piled with huge drifts of wind-driven snow from the massive storm that had come through during the night. We started out even before the snowplows could clear the roads, so we forged our own path on the interstate on what we hoped was the actual pavement, but it was difficult to know for sure in the darkness.

Headed from Salt Lake City to Idaho Falls to visit my in-laws, by 9:30 a.m. we had only made it as far as Malad, a little town not far across the Idaho border, and over the past hour or so, a new concern had taken precedence. A restroom.

Any woman who has been "great with child" knows what I am talking about when I say that my situation had become an emergency. No service stations would be open on this morning just in case needy travelers happened by. What needy travelers? Anybody in their right mind had arrived at their destination the night before to avoid the weather conditions, and were now in a toasty-warm house to see dawn break with all its yuletide glory. Here we were, the only vehicle on the pristine, lonely ribbon of the snow-laden interstate.

Just then I realized that such circumstances could work to my advantage. "Just pull off to the side of the road!" I pleaded with Kris (a.k.a. hapless husband).

"Are you crazy?" he replied. "I'm not even sure we are on the road. We'll stop in Malad. There's got to be a 7-11 open there."

We drove down the first main street we could find. We passed business after business with 'CLOSED' signs in the windows.

"What am I going to do?" I moaned. I was envisioning my own inglorious arrival at my in-laws' house if we didn't find a solution quickly.

Just then we approached a big, white home with an old-fashioned porch.

"Stop at this house!" I demanded. It looked like a grandmother's house — someone who wouldn't shut the door in a stranger's face. Waddling stiffly to the front door, I knocked urgently and, to my relief, the door opened almost immediately. Inside stood a woman in a bathrobe. She smiled at me as a man appeared from around the corner wearing his undershirt, slippers and pants that matched his rumpled hair. I could hear children laughing, but I was miserable, not only because of my desperate need but I had intruded on a family's private Christmas celebration.

"I'm sorry … uh, there's no place open and I …"

The woman laughed merrily and reached for my arm. "Come on in," she said. "You don't need to say more. I've been there!" We were talking 'mother tongue' while her husband stood there looking momentarily perplexed until she continued with, "Down the hall and to your left."

When I reappeared in their Christmas-cluttered living room, the children were still busy with their holiday gifts, but they seemed intrigued by their unexpected visitor. I was somewhat embarrassed, but the family let me know there was no need to feel that way.

"Would you like some lemonade?" the woman offered. She was so eager to offer me her hospitality. "Would your husband like to come in and have some?" Had they been expecting guests, I'm sure that hot cocoa would have been offered, but lemonade was the most festive beverage available under the circumstances.

We chatted at the door for just a moment as I thanked her, and I wanted to hug that woman in the bathrobe. I was not an intruder. My need that day had been embarrassingly simple, but this family would have shared any part of their Christmas with a stranger.

I never asked their names, but the few moments I spent at their house that morning became one of my favorite Christmas memories.

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Mom's Sacrifice for Christmas Toys

By George Hawkins

Seventy-three years ago, we were living in a little rented house just south of Logan, Utah. I was 7 years old and I had a brother who was 9. We didn’t have much expectation for the upcoming Christmas because Santa Claus had been unable to find our house the year before. And then the big kids in the neighborhood told us who Santa Claus really was.

The year 1940 had been a disaster in our world. Dad hadn’t been able to make the payment on our small farm, so we lost that and the little house my dad had built on it. We were jobless, car-less, and next to homeless. The chances that Santa Claus might find our house seemed even bleaker than the year before, but as Christmas approached, my Mom decided we would not have another Christmas without toys. She made some good homemade candy — two kinds of fudge, pinoche and divinity — and put it into little cellophane bags. While we were in school, she walked into Logan and went door to door to sell her candy. Cache Valley is cold in the winter, and I can imagine that Mom didn’t have a good coat, or boots or gloves. I remember she would come home about frozen stiff.

After supper was over, Mom would fire up the wood stove and make more candy. The next day she’d walk to another area of Logan and again go door to door. World War II had just begun. People were broke and many were scared. It wasn’t easy to sell candy door-to-door.

That Christmas, I got a wind-up motorcycle cop that would run around and around in circles while the siren wailed. It was a wonderful Christmas.

I will always honor my mother for what she did that Christmas. She was only 28 years old and already she’d had four children born alive, though two had died. She’d also had two miscarriages with heavy hemorrhaging. She had lost all her upper teeth and spent two years in poverty so crushing I can’t even imagine the depth of her despair. Grandma used to send us a 3-cent stamp in her letters so that Mom could send an answer. It would have been easy to give up, but Mom didn’t. She made candy and sold it on the frozen streets of Logan, so her 7-year-old could have a toy for Christmas. I still have that little wind-up motorcycle, and it still works.

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The Grays and the Meaning of Christmas

by Margaret Russell

We are all familiar with the saying, “Every cloud has a silver lining.” Through my life, I have experienced troubled times but usually the event somehow gets changed around, and it becomes a happy experience.

The Depression Years in the larger Canadian cities and elsewhere during the 1930s affected everyone in one way or another. Some professional people managed to get along with a reduced income while tradesmen in our district were either on Working Men’s Relief or perhaps 10 days a month working for the Canadian Pacific Railway.

My Scottish parents had arrived in Winnipeg during the prosperous 1920s, with my father, a painter, being employed by the CPR. When the Depression years lasted longer than most people expected, the CPR kept a skeleton crew with their longest employees working 10 days in each month while the company maintained three daily shifts.

The newer employees, such as my father, were laid off.

There was very little help for anyone in Winnipeg until July 1931, when the federal government established Working Men’s Relief. In the meantime, most men and their families were trying to pick up odd jobs as they eked out a livelihood.

Once registered for Working Men’s Relief, my father worked in and around the city, doing whatever was required. In the summer of 1933, he was working at Polo Park.

During this period, my mom and we four youngsters returned to the city after enjoying a 10-day holiday at one of the Fresh Air Camps on Lake Winnipeg that were operated by the United Church or the Salvation Army, for under-privileged families.

My father met us at the CPR station, and I remembered seeing one of his eyes all inflamed and almost shut. It took no time for this itchy skin disease to spread to his entire body. Our family doctor at that time recognized and diagnosed his condition as Mustard Gas poisoning that had remained latent in his body from the First World War, until perhaps an insect had bitten him while working, and brought it all out.

With my dad unable to work, our family was taken off Working Men’s Relief and placed on Social Welfare. On Social Welfare, we did not receive the monthly vouchers for groceries, milk and bread as we had on Relief, but instead we were supplied basic food items such as dried peas and beans, delivered from T. Eaton grocery department.

We received a separate voucher for three pints of milk each day and very little bread. My mother received flour instead, and was able to bake wholesome bread, which we enjoyed.

Mother was a very good cook and baker, but her imagination to make changes in our monotonous diet was limited, as we had the same grocery items given each month, take it or leave it. Another difference between the Relief and the Social Welfare was that we had no clothing or shoe allowances.

There was absolutely no availability to have any money.

During the hot dry summers, with temperatures from 90 F to 118 F, my dad’s face was just one large open sore that was usually covered with lotion to allay the itch. My mother had to walk three miles to a certain downtown drug store for a small bottle of the lotion, although we had two drug stores close at hand.

One application of lotion on my dad’s face and the bottle was empty.

My father fought at Gallipoli and the Dardanelles, but as his skin was clear when he was discharged in 1919, he never received any pension from the British War Office.

We received no hamper during the Christmas season of 1935. Our name was not on any list, because of the late transfer of our family from Relief to Social Welfare.

During this Christmas, my brothers and sister, as well as myself, hung up our stockings on the back of a chair, expecting that there would be something in them on Christmas morning. There was nothing!

My older brother had a piece of wood in his stocking to remind him that he had not done his chore of bringing in the wood for the kitchen stove. My mother had placed it there so we would all have a good laugh.

Shortly after breakfast, the neighbor’s four kids came to our door, to see what we had received for Christmas. Mom invited them in and gave them some homemade bread covered with some of her jam, along with some cocoa. How they relished this treat. They only had store-bought bread in their home.

At school, the Gray kids were in the same classes as ourselves. They felt bad that we had not received anything, and soon left. About 15 minutes later, the four kids were back at our door, each of them bearing a gift. They told us that when they went home and told their mother about our plight, their mother asked each one of them to pick out one of their own gifts, and take it to our home, and give it to us.

What beautiful thoughts we all had that Christmas morning! I always remembered what Eleanor Gray gave me that day. It was a celluloid doll on a swing, that when you pressed the two fragile metal ropes, the doll did a somersault.

The Gray family were on Relief, but that Christmas their mother had taught her children a valuable lesson on sharing and caring.

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A Warm Wool Blanket

by Cathy Richards

At the age of 82, my mother went to heaven on May 22, of this year. For all my 47 years, I spent Christmas with Mom back in our hometown in upstate New York, even the last nine while I've been a California resident. This first Christmas without her will be a sad one, but one made more tender by a loving act of kindness.

Yesterday I got a slip in my mailbox to pick up a package at the post office. From the zip code listed, I thought the parcel was from a particular friend who lives near my hometown. Was I surprised to find that it was actually from the manager of the senior citizens' apartment complex where my mother had lived. He had been very kind to us during my mother's illness, and here was an unexpected present from him and his wife, whom I had met only once.

Of all the thoughtful gestures extended to me immediately following my mother's death, theirs had really touched me. When I opened by mother's apartment and invited her neighbors in to see if there was anything they wanted, the manager's wife came. It is the only time I've ever seen her. She picked up a few things that day and told me to stop by for dinner if I was ever back in the area.

A couple days later, when I was leaving Mom's apartment for the last time, the manager came out to my car to hug me, and he told me that one of the things his wife picked up was an angel ornament my mother had. Instead of using the ornament at their home, they decided that each year they would put the angel on the Christmas tree in the recreation room of the apartment complex to remember my mother. The thought was so sweet that I burst into tears on the sidewalk.

Well, I opened their package this morning and first read the card. It says Mom's angel ornament has a special place near the top of the recreation room's tree. That was enough to start the tears. But then they explained that the present was a stuffed gingerbread man that the wife made by hand and that the material used to make the gingerbread man's scarf and sack came from my mother's blanket -- another item selected by the wife after Mom's passing. My eyes were flooded with tears as I opened this precious gift and saw the familiar green and white striped blanket.

It was an incredibly durable wool blanket that we had since I was a kid. It is the one and only blanket I specifically remember because of the stripes. And when my ill mother was going through repeated, alternating periods of high fevers and chills in April and May of this year, she asked me to dig that blanket out of the closet. Even though she was piled high with sheets, blankets, and comforters, she was convinced that ultra-warm wool blanket would stop the extreme and intense chills.

Without knowing the significance of that particular wool blanket, how totally lovely and appropriate that a "stranger" picked that material to make me something so special for this first Christmas. I can't wait to tell her how much warmth has been provided by her thoughtfulness and those familiar green and white stripes.

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Enemy Sub Delivers an Unforgettable Gift

By Lee Wayne Maloy

In the war years, I served my country as a merchant marine. By the time I was 19 years old I had traveled around the world three times. It was a great adventure for a young man, but life as a merchant seaman was very rough, and I had to learn to be tough to survive.

New men went through initiations called "smokers." This is where you either sank or swam as a merchant marine. I found myself in a small boxing ring fighting the toughest man on board. I was knocked down time and time again, but I kept getting up, and each time I pulled myself to my feet, I got a little better and a little more confident.

Though I never knocked the big guy down, I learned one of the best lessons of my life: to never give up and just keep trying.

My efforts proved to be the right thing because everyone came over and patted me on the back and gave me a big hug. Even the biggest and toughest guy on board became a fast friend who always looked after me from then on. These were the men with whom I would share so many amazing experiences. Though many of my memories have become grayed with the passing of the years, there are a few that still stand out as vivid as if they just happened. Let me preface this Christmas experience with the fact that even at my young age, I had faced death before.

There was the time we were in the Indian Ocean on a tanker carrying war supplies to the troops. The year was 1944, and we had all been on alert for the entire week having heard several ships had been sunk by U-boats. The Germans were relentless and usually traveled in "wolf packs," making it most difficult to avoid being torpedoed.

The moon was bright that night, and I could see very clearly. I was on watch on the bow of the ship with binoculars in hand. I surveyed the horizon keeping myself sharp and alert for my task. My older brother was on board with me and was down in the galley having his coffee. I had been on watch for several hours and was getting a little cold and hungry.

The sea was a fluorescent green, which made every white cap and fish glow. As I scanned the horizon, I suddenly noticed two fluorescent streaks in the distance. I blinked my eyes just to make sure of what I was seeing. Yes, it was two torpedoes coming straight for the bow of our ship. I quickly grabbed the phone to warn the bridge, but it just rang and rang without anyone answering.

Later they told me they saw the torpedoes as I rang and didn't think we had a chance. I didn't think we had a chance either, but as the ship rose on the swell of the next wave, the torpedo on our starboard side missed us completely. The one on our port side was invisible and I was invisible, and I wrapped my arms tightly around myself and closed my eyes as though I could protect myself from the impending explosion.

I waited frozen in that moment of time with my shipmates as we heard the torpedo skim down the ship, clanging as it went. It banged into us four or five times, and then silence. By some miracle, the torpedo's warhead never came in contact with the ship, and we were saved.

Several months later on Christmas Eve, I had just celebrated my 20th birthday on Dec. 21. We were on our way home from the Mediterranean approaching the Straits of Gibraltar on our way to the North Atlantic. We were happily bound for the East Coast of the good old USA. It was a stormy night that Christmas Eve, and I was once again on watch at the bow of the ship.

The sea was covered in white caps, which make it almost impossible to see "turkey feathers," a term we used to describe the white plume that flows behind a submarine's periscope when it is close to the surface. Understandably, all of our thoughts were of home and of Christmas and of hopes of soon being with our families.

The past days had been unremarkable, and the sights, sounds and smell of the ocean lulled me into a sense of well-being. Then it all seemed to happen in an instant. I saw the plume of a periscope appear off the port side of our ship. It couldn't have been more than 100 yards away. I had no chance to ring the bridge this time. They must have seen the periscope at the same time I did because the ship was suddenly alive with alarms and shouts of men scurrying to their battle stations.

But there was no time to ready ourselves for a fight. There was no time to protect ourselves in any way. The submarine was already on us, rising up out of that choppy sea. The enemy had us dead to rights. I'll never forget what happened next.

There was a flashing. Dash dash, dot dot dash dot. I mouthed the letters as I saw the German submarine blinking its Morse code message. I couldn't believe what was I was seeing. M-E-R. Could I be reading it correctly? Another "R" and then, dash dot dash dash, a "Y." It was happening so fast as the second word flashed to us in the darkness. C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S. Then it was over. As fast as the U-boat had appeared it sank back into the blackness of the sea and was gone.

We all stood transfixed. No one moved for several seconds as we recovered from our shock and surprise. We had escaped death before by a twist of fate or maybe luck.

But on this Christmas Eve we had been given a gift. As the reality of what had just transpired and the words "Merry Christmas" took hold in our minds and then our hearts, we unitedly sent up a cheer. A cheer of relief, and of joy and true celebration.

I have had many wonderful Christmases since that Christmas Eve in 1944. I was able to marry and spend 56 years with my lovely wife and help to raise our three children.
Each consecutive Christmas has been surrounded by grandchildren and now, great-grandchildren. None of these memories would have ever been possible if it wasn't for that fortuitous night when the "enemy" gave a ship full of men the gift of peace and one of their best Christmas memories possible.

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Number 15

By Blaine Wilcox

"The Christmas I Remember Best" was not the best Christmas I remember. It was not the year I got a pony or the one I received a new sports car or the trip to Europe, since I never got any of those things anyway, but through the luck of the draw, it did involve a gift that I received.

I was in the seventh grade in Mr. Boden's homeroom math class in Preston, Idaho. The year would have been 1943 — right in the middle of World War II. As was the custom then, school classes often drew names and exchanged gifts with classmates. Ours was a math class, so we drew numbers instead of names to enhance the element of surprise and the number thing was more mathematically correct. The cost of the gift was to be 25 cents, a substantial amount in those days. I drew Number 15.

There were not as many choices for gifts at that time as there are today. A number of things were rationed — gas, meat, butter, shoes, sugar — to name a few, and automobiles were unavailable — so all of those were eliminated. This was not going to be a simple task.

Now, in our town there was a club that was kind of a carry-over from the speak-easies of the Prohibition era. Members went to the door and knocked, and the door was opened a small crack. When the patron was recognized, he was admitted. Most of the boys in the community knew the secret knock. Often on the way home from school or town, we would approach the door, give the secret knock and then run like Hades. It was good sport and gave us some exercise as well.

At the time I worked at the local cobbler or shoemaker shop. The owner of the club happened to be one of my shoeshine customers. I guess he took a liking or shine to me because he offered me the privilege of buying candy from his club. It was sort of a sweet, honorary, dry membership. I was given the secret code (which I already knew), and he told me I could come by any time I liked and purchase candy. This was great, for with sugar being rationed, candy was in short supply. In fact, it was downright scarce.

Most kids love candy, so I decided I would spend the 25 cents and buy candy bars for Number 15. What a wonderful thing to do for someone who didn't have speak-easy privileges!

That night after work I stopped at the club and bought five big Powerhouse candy bars. I hurried home and wrapped them and numbered the card, then sat back and waited for the day the presents would be exchanged.

I thought I had the perfect gift for any seventh-grader and could hardly wait until D-Day (distribution day) to hand the package to Number 15 and watch his or her eyes light up when it was opened and the contents discovered. I was sure it must be the best gift anyone in the class had purchased or would receive. If Number 15 were that cute little Geraldine in the second row, I might even get a kiss for a bonus. I went to class each day and as I cast my eyes over the pupils, I couldn't help but wonder which would be the lucky one to receive my wonderful gift. Who was Number 15 that I was going to make the happiest person in the world?

The last day of school before the Christmas vacation finally arrived, and it was time for the gift exchange. My name starting with "W" put me at the back of the class, so Number 15 would have to wait till the very end for this special blessing — heightening the suspense even more.

Mr. Boden began calling the roll, and as each student gave his number, the teacher would tell the name assigned to it. Time seemed to really drag through the A's and B's and C's, and as the presents were opened, I was convinced that the one I had bought was the greatest!

I hadn't been paying too much attention to the name-calling process (I don't believe in calling names), but if I had I would have noticed that my name had not come up in the numbers racket. Maybe the student who had my number was absent. When my name was finally called on the roll, and I announced I had Number 15, Mr. Boden said, "Number 15 is Blaine Wilcox."

Doh!

I cannot describe the disappointment. All my planning and anticipation for the excitement and ecstasy of Number 15 when he or she received what easily could have been the second-greatest gift ever given never happened. I had drawn my own number.

The class all sang, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," and everyone had a good laugh, but that didn't do much to relieve the ultimate suffering I was experiencing. There was no joy in Mudville that day.

Well, the sun rose the next morning, as it has done every day since, and life went on, but each year at this season I reflect on how happy Number 15 could have been and how disappointed Number 15 really was. It should have been the best of times for him, but it was the worst of times for me.

I guess a moral to this story (if there is a moral) would be, "It is more blessed to give to and to receive from someone other than yourself. True happiness and joy come from sharing and giving to others."

Besides, if I had realized I had my own number, I would have bought a different brand of candy bar.

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Riding Dreams on a Pony

By Ken Jennings, Jr.

A pony for Christmas? The year was 1953, and most American children were secretly wishing, praying and writing letters to Santa Claus promising to be nice rather than naughty in return for that ultimate desideratum of gifts: the “real, live pony.”

Subtle hints were everywhere. The Lone Ranger’s face on the back of the Cheerios box revealed a sly, knowing grin if you looked at it just right. Trigger, Silver and Topper were inevitably the focus of comparative analysis when the neighborhood gathered for tag and philosophy. Silver was faster, but Trigger was smarter. Everyone could agree on that. Those secondary characters that tagged along with these great steeds? Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy? They were as fungible as the extras in last year’s western.

The irony of asking Santa for a pony when you lived in a third floor walk-up in Brooklyn totally escaped my generation.

We didn’t live in a third-floor walk-up. We lived in Bothell, Washington, just beyond the suburbs of greater Seattle. We had chickens, rabbits, fruit trees and a kitchen garden sprawling over 5 acres that qualified as the wild frontier in my 4-year-old eyes. Bears had been seen on Pontius Road and salmon swimming upstream had once strayed into the ditch in front of our house. Plenty of room for a pony.

Only there would be no pony.

My 6-year-old sister had recently emerged from months in a cast and slept with braces on her legs every night. Mother was attending the University of Washington to qualify for a teaching certificate so she could help make ends meet. Dad was working extra hours in his grocery store trying to earn enough money to keep up with the hospital bills. Looking back, I know that in the weeks approaching Christmas, while my sisters and I lay sleepless but snug in our beds with visions of sugarplums and that real-live-pony dancing in our heads, in the quiet of the room next to ours, my parents lay sleepless and weeping that they had nothing to give their three children for Christmas.

But Mother had served in the Marine Corps during the recent world war. Once a Marine, always a Marine, they say, and she planned the operation and carried it out with Semper Fi precision. On her way home from the university a few days before Christmas, she stopped by the plywood mill near our home. Enduring the whistles and leers of the mill workers she begged them for a few cores from the turned logs and loaded them into the old Desoto. Dad found discarded lumber and an old tire under the chicken house. There was also a left-over gallon of that hideous swimming-pool-aquamarine paint that people used in kitchens and bathrooms in the '50s. The big splurge was probably 39 cents for a pint of black enamel.

Christmas Eve came and we sat together as a family while Dad read from Luke and Matthew. Decades hence, the images I still see of shepherds, angels, wise men and the babe in the manger surrounded by animals in a rustic stable retain the miraculous clarity and astonishment that were engraved on my 4-year old heart that night.

On Christmas morning — the miracle! Standing patiently side by side in our back yard were three horses of slightly different stature, but custom made (literally) for a 4-year-old boy and his 5- and 6-year-old sisters. I didn’t notice that their glistening coats were of a pale blue-green hue, that their two-by-four legs had knots in them, that their manes and tails were cut from an old tire, or that the saddles and faces were painted on. Those horses carried us across plains, forded streams, traversed mountains and deserts, and penetrated jungles in adventures that would have astounded John Wayne.

There have been many memorable Christmases since 1953. From my youth, I recall the Christmas of the electric train, the Christmas of the BB gun, and the Christmas of the shortwave radio. From my adult life, there was the first “starving student Christmas” with my sweet wife and subsequent Christmases with special gifts for one, two, three and finally four children. And now we watch as our grandchildren discover the magic, peace and holiness of the season.

A pony for Christmas? Yes, indeed. I will never forget “the Christmas that we got horses!” And now the irony that eluded me at age 4 has taken on a meaning worthy of wondering awe. That Christmas of 1953 is the one that I look to as an echo of the magnificent irony of the first Christmas, where sorrow, humble circumstances and perfect love combined to bestow the greatest gift of all.
 

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I Learned Much From Africa

By Warner Woodworth

One of the most absolutely amazing Christmases of mine occurred in the deserts of sub-Saharan Africa in 1998. We wandered through the sands of impoverished African villages, observed men and women dressed in their traditional robes called boubous, along with their sandals and occasional headdresses. In one of the poorest areas of earth, my wife, Kaye, and I, along with a few friends, spent the last 10 days of December that year getting to know and serve the loving people and culture of West Africa.

In November our Provo, Utah church group had launched several projects for us to take gifts to the people we were serving. The young men collected dozens of soccer balls, used and new, to distribute so each village would have at least one new and several used balls, along with an air pump for maintenance. It would be a sharp contrast to the rags tied together as soccer balls they had used for most of their lives.

Over the same several weeks, the young women and their mothers set up a “sewing factory” in our LDS ward cultural hall where they made cute dolls out of various fabrics. Each produced a soft, huggable African doll to be given to village girls, along with homemade dresses to enjoy several doll outfits. Needless to say, we had a lot of luggage.

When in Africa, darkness came early each evening. We could see tiny fires outside the mud huts where families cooked their meals, ate, played drums and danced. With no electricity in the region, the darkness overhead was a stark contrast, with constellations of the southern skies shining brilliantly above. The stars made us think of that first Christmas 2,000 years ago when a tiny Babe was born in a similar dusty village called Bethlehem.

At times, we would walk through the dirt paths surrounding our simple compound, viewing thatched-roof huts and palm trees swaying in the breeze. We could see the occasional run-down manger with dry hay on the ground, often with Brahma cattle lowing and goats scampering underfoot. It couldn’t have been different at the birth of Baby Jesus.

Stark poverty was everywhere, infant mortality among the highest in the world — 18 times higher than the United States. Families there operated at a subsistence level. Living occurred in simple houses made of mud with wooden frames and hard dirt floors. Water was hauled by the women from thousands of yards away at a communal well.

This was a place where few children had opportunities for a healthy life, let alone an education. Sanitation was provided by pit latrines or the bush. With deforestation occurring over the years to secure cooking fuel, accompanied by an 18-year drought and a lack of wild game, survival was a harsh taskmaster. The region’s GNP per head was approximately $250 U.S. that year.

I recall the experience of giving one of our soft dolls to a 5-year-old girl in a large village. A day later we happened upon the family compound where we saw the child’s mother, Maineh, cradling the new doll in her arms, swinging back and forth while humming a lullaby. When we enquired, she simply told us the doll made her remember her babies that had died at birth, or soon afterward. Tears came to our eyes, as well as hers, as we reflected on the deep pain suffered by so many women in the region. We hadn’t dreamed a single doll would mean so much.

At Christmastime that year, I learned much from Africa — lessons of love and dignity, as well as peace, humility and human betterment. Despite their abject poverty, villagers taught me to thank God. I gained important lessons from them about how to truly love others, to live life to the fullest, to be grateful for every blessing, great or small.

On that Christmas Eve in 1998, we lit a candle, softly sang some of our favorite Christmas songs, and shared our thoughts about the miraculous birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a sacred experience, a holy time, as we crouched around our little campfire and reflected on our blessings. We could certainly empathize with the plight of Joseph and Mary. We felt a bit of what the shepherds must have felt in the deserts of Judea long ago.

Every year since then, I recall that first experience as a few humble Utahns ventured to Africa to bless the lives of 25,000 native people in 20 villages during a wonderful Christmas season. It wasn’t a massive change project, but it gave comfort to at least one mother who’d lost her little one.

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Ugly Christmas Tree

By Bill Roskelley

It was December 1944, just three days before Christmas and we still didn't have a Christmas tree. World War II found many families struggling just to meet their needs, and Christmas trees seemed to be the furthest thing from their minds.

Our family was no different. With six children I knew we would have a meager Christmas, but would it be without our family’s annual Christmas tree?

Early that morning Papa loaded all six of us children in the car and we headed for the closest Christmas tree lot. As we pulled into the lot, I could hear myself saying, “We’re going to have a Christmas tree!”

Everyone piled out of the car and started running to a tree hoping it would be the one Papa would pick. He glanced around the lot knowing that this close to Christmas he could probably do some bargaining.

He walked over to the area marked $3. He looked at several of the trees, walked to another area and picked out one that was missing several branches. He approached the salesman and offered him 50 cents. The salesman looked at Papa and then at us six children who were now staring at him. He counter offered a dollar. “Done,” Papa said.

I couldn’t believe what Papa had just done. He had just agreed to buy the ugliest Christmas tree I had ever seen. How could he? What was he thinking? What would Mama say?

Papa reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver dollar. I realized at that moment it was all the money he had. He handed it to the salesman and picked up the tree, ordering all of us children back to the car while he tied it onto the roof.

After he had finished securing it to the car he walked over to where a large stack of branches lay on the ground and asked the salesman if he could take some. The salesman agreed and Papa picked up several and handed them to us to hold on our laps while we returned home.

As we arrived, Mama came to the front door to greet us. Papa quickly unloaded the tree and Mama took one look, never said a word and went back in the house. For the next three hours Papa took the hand drill and started boring holes in the trunk of the tree. When he finished each hole, he would meticulously and patiently insert one of the branches until it was firmly in place.

Finally, he set the tree upright and I couldn’t believe my eyes. There stood a beautiful 6-foot tree with no branches missing that could have outclassed any of the trees we left at the lot. I was stunned.

Papa took our old tree stand from the shelf and affixed it to the bottom of the tree. He then carried it into the house and placed in front of the big bay window that faced Yellowstone Highway. Mama smiled and I knew everything was going to be all right.

That evening all of the family gathered for the trimming of the tree. When all the ornaments were placed on the tree, both store-bought and homemade, we applied our favorite bubble lights. Next the tinsel and other items were added until the tree was decorated and the lights were turned on. It now stood majestically in the front window for everyone to see.

I don’t remember what I got for Christmas that year, but I will never forget how proud I was of the beautiful Christmas tree that adorned our neighborhood in December 1944. Papa taught me a lifelong lesson that Christmas: The tree I perceived to be so ugly became a thing of beauty with just a little work, and so it is with life.

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Little Drummer Boy (Pum-Ditty-Pum-Pum)

By Debbie Smoot

"Come they told me . . . dum-ditty-dum-dum. . . ." I stopped the chorus of 4-year-olds midstream in the song and looked directly at Eric.

"Eric, this song is called `The Little Drummer Boy,' " I spoke sternly, "and the words are `Come they told me, pa-rump-a-pum-pum,' not `dum-ditty-dum-dum. And, Eric, you don't need to yell it. We can hear you above everyone else. Just sing, Eric. You know, sing!" "Eric, Eric, Eric. . . ." I muttered under my breath as I walked back to my music stand. . . . Eric, Eric, Eric. . . "

Eric had two speeds: on and off. I never saw off. I imagine "off" happened for Eric sometime between 1 and 3 a.m. (that is, on a good night). This little, shiny-faced wisp of a boy had more unspent, undirected energy than any child I had ever met. He simply could not hold still. He shifted, he twitched, he giggled, he yawned, and when he sang, he yelled.

He smelled of soap and Brylcreem and clothes that had been hung outside on the line to dry. Two yellow-striped T-shirts, faded and frayed at the neck, a pair of black jeans and a red-hooded sweatshirt constituted his entire school wardrobe. But his clothes were always clean. His shirts were worn one day, washed the next. His jeans were worn all week, but they were always clean and creased on Monday morning when Eric arrived on the bus from the other side of town. Monday mornings at our public preschool always found Eric scrubbed, spit-polished and ready for action. This little boy was obviously loved.

And I must admit, there was a lot of Eric that was lovable. Through all his perpetual motion, he smiled. In fact, he never quit smiling. His face carried a non-stop, tooth-filled grin. And when Eric's grin caught you head on, it was impossible to stay angry at him.

Three times a week, on the front row of my preschool chorus, there stood Eric, grinning and yelling; although in all fairness to him, he thought he was singing. It's just that Eric loved to sing, and he belted out those Christmas songs, through that grin, as though his life depended on it. He raised the roof, if not our spirits. There were, however, a couple of problems with that:

1. Eric was in a group of six children bussed from the other side of town in an effort to achieve racial equality. His enthusiasm alone made him the uncontested "star" of the chorus. Some of the mothers were not too fond of Eric, one of those "other" children, stealing the show.

2. Eric could never remember the words. His enthusiasm also made him a natural leader, and soon the whole chorus was singing, "Come they told me dum-ditty-dum-dum . . ." and then pealing off into uncontrolled laughter.

I was trying to work on both problems. I sent the words to the song home with Eric to memorize. And some of the mothers were making stiff, white collars with big red bows so this chorus of middle-class children sprinkled with the "rag-tag bunch" (as one mother called them) would look unified, even if they didn't sound it.

The final rehearsal went well until we got to "The Little Drummer Boy."

 "Come they told me . . ." was followed by silence, confusion, hesitation. The piano went on with the melody, but the little 4-year-olds were so confused with hum and dum and pum that they simply froze. All except Eric. "Dum-ditty-dum-dum . . . ," he finished the phrase.

"That's it!" I raised my voice and stopped the chorus. "We are not singing about the seven dwarves here! This is a Christmas song, a very special Christmas song about a little boy just like you - except he lived long ago at the time when Baby Jesus was born. He was very poor and young, but he wanted more than anything to visit the newborn baby in the manger. When he got there, he saw kings and wise men and people like that waiting to see the Baby Jesus. They all had expensive gifts to give the Christ Child. Things like gold and jewels and perfume.

"Well, when the little boy saw all those fancy people, with all their fancy gifts, he just about turned around and went home. I mean, he was just a little kid - a poor little kid at that, with nothing to give. . . . About the only thing he could do at all was play his drum. But then he looked around and realized that the Baby Jesus was poor, too, that He was born in a stable (that's like a barn where they kept the animals), not in some fancy place.

"So, when it was the little boy's turn to see Jesus, he asked Mary, Baby Jesus' mother, if he could play his drum for the baby, and she said, `Yes.' Well, everyone loved it, and the little boy learned that the best gift you can give is the gift of yourself!"

I finished the story, satisfied that the children understood it, and went on, "when we sing the song, we are making the sound of the little boy's drum. It is a `p' sound. Everybody say it with me . . . `p,' `p,' `pum.' Now everybody say, `pum' 20 times: `pum, pum, pum, pum.' "

The chorus repeated the words. I looked at the clock. I had taken too long telling the story of the little drummer boy. Our rehearsal time was gone.

"OK, children," I finished up, "There is no more time to practice this song, but you have to remember the drum makes a `p' sound . . . `pum, pum, pum.' Have you got it?" "Yes," they all nodded, and ran off to lunch, "pumming" all the way.

I walked back to their classroom teacher, who was sitting on a chair at the rear of the auditorium, watching the whole rehearsal. "Tell me about Eric," I asked and, discouraged, sat down beside her.

"Well, there isn't a lot to tell," she said. "As far as we know, he is an only child being raised by his grandmother. We've never met her. Eric told us she didn't want to come to back-to-school-night because she was afraid someone would find out she couldn't read. Apparently, his grandmother is an illiterate black woman who stands in the shadows; and as best she can on a welfare check, loves and cares for this little boy." The teacher stood up. "I'd better check on the children," she finished. "Good luck, Debbi. Thanks for all your help with the chorus."

I went back to the office to look up Eric's records. He lived alone with his paternal grandmother. There was an address, but no phone number. I wrote a special note inviting her to the program and sent it home with Eric - pinned to his shirt so she would be sure to see it. Surely, if his grandmother couldn't read the note, she knew someone who could read it to her.

The day of the program arrived. The auditorium filled with parents, armed with cameras and video recorders. I stood out in the hall with my preschool chorus. Eric had on a new white dress shirt that he wanted to show me. He was higher than a kite. The whole chorus was excited, wiggling even more than usual. The stiff white collars were driving them crazy. I barked out some last-minute instructions: They were not to touch those collars while they were singing, even if they were itching to death. With that said, we all marched onto the stage.

The children went through the songs without a hitch: "Jingle Bells," "Silent Night," "Away in a Manger." This little crew looked and sounded for all the world like a chorus of angels. It's amazing what white collars and a touch of the Christmas spirit can do.

I turned the music on my stand to "The Little Drummer Boy," signaled the pianist to begin and made the "pum" sound with my lips to the children as the introduction was playing. "Come they told me . . . ," they started right on cue. "Pum-ditty-pum-pum. . . ." They hesitated for just a moment before joining Eric. There was no stopping them now. "I am a poor boy, too. . . ," Eric's voice soared above the others, "pum-ditty-pum-pum. . . .' "

How could I have forgotten the "rum-pump-o-pump-pum" part when I talked to them yesterday? I could hear people in the audience snickering.

"Mary nodded . . . pum-ditty-pum-pum. . . ." By now, there were only about three children singing with Eric. The noise from the audience had scared the others.

What was I thinking? The song was way too hard for a group of 4-year-olds. The children were frozen and embarrassed, and so was I. We all wanted to crawl off stage, all except for Eric.

"The ox and lambs kept time," he yelled, "Pum-ditty-pum-pum." And he grinned and continued. "I played my best for Him, pum-ditty-pum-pum." By now, Eric was singing a solo. "I played my best for Him." He didn't even notice no one else was singing.

"Pum-ditty-pum-pum-ditty-pum-pum-ditty-pum-pum. . . ." Eric's "pum dittys" were bouncing all around the auditorium. The laughter in the audience was now uncontrollable.

Finally, I mean finally, the song ended, and a bunch of bewildered 4-year-olds bowed and got off the stage as fast as possible and totally out of order.
Before I could get out of the school, the hallway was filled with parents, white collars and children. Leading the pack was Eric, pulling a short, gray-haired woman by the hand.

"Mrs. Smoot, Mrs. Smoot." Eric made a beeline for me. "Mrs. Smoot, this is my grandma." He dragged her up to my side and grinned. "She rode the bus all the way up here to see the program." He was obviously pleased she had made the trip. "She wants to tell you thanks," he continued in his yelling, Eric voice.

I turned to his grandmother and started to speak.

"Well, I'm very happy to meet you. Eric is. . . ." There was a vacant stare in her bright eyes. I noticed large hearing aids in both her ears. She smiled, obviously confused. "She says she's happy to meet you, too," Eric blurted out. He was acting as a translator for his grandmother, whom I now realized was almost totally deaf.

"Boy, isn't Christmas great, Mrs. Smoot?" Eric said. "Sorry I sang so loud, Mrs. Smoot, but that `Little Drummer Boy' is such a great story, I wanted my grandma to hear it!"

Eric's grandmother could not hear a word we were saying, but standing there silently in a purple-flowered dress, she could see Eric's excitement and his love of the music. She looked at me for a moment, her eyes tear-filled, and spontaneously reached up to hug me. "Thank you," she whispered. "Oh no. Thank you," I said back as I looked in her eyes. "Thank you for Eric." I embraced her again. She then tenderly removed Eric's stiff white collar, handed it to me, took her little grandson's hand, and together I watched them walk down the hall, Eric bouncing at her side and singing, "Pum-ditty-pum-pum" all the way out the door.

I never hear the song about the little drummer boy at Christmas without remembering Eric and his gift to his grandmother and, without remembering the look in his grandmother's eyes as she took Eric's hand, her gift of unconditional love to him. I never read the story of that little drummer boy without recalling the miracle that must have happened that night in the manger, of God's greatest Christmas gift of all - His love.

And every time I have the chance to sing this beloved carol as part of a church or community choir, though I don't sing it out loud, in my heart the words will always be "pum-ditty-pum-pum. . . "
 

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Max

ByLeeAnn Morris

"Merry Christmas, Carol," Bernadette told her friend and co-worker of twenty years. It had never occurred to Bernadette to buy Carol a Christmas present, they'd been working together for so long that it was understood that it wasn't necessary.

"I was in the Toys R Us and he just fell off the shelf, right into my arms. I thought of you as soon as I saw him!" With all the grace and maturity one can muster upon the arrival of a gift, Carol opened the box.

"Max!" Carol exclaimed, hugging the sandy-brown Teddy Bear. She held him close as if to finally see a long lost friend.
"That's your name, Max."

Carol had worked at DOT for 20 years and was fast reaching retirement age. So it was time to begin preparations for her and her husband Sam's dream, one which may not have happened if not for a tragic event a couple of years earlier. Their 22-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver on a nearby highway. She and her friends had been very careful and responsible that night and had designated a driver for the night. Regardless of how careful they had been, the man driving the semi was not quite as responsible.

Because of the money they'd received in settlements, they could now afford their dream to move to Oregon and own a traveling vacation home. The vacation home was to be 40' long sleeps 10 comfortably, had a shower and toilet, kitchen with a stove and refrigerator and all the basic luxuries of life. The home had been ordered and it was now time for Sam to drive to California to pick it up.

Sam had spent most of his working life as a truck driver with an impeccable record of only one accident in 15 years of driving, and that accident was the result of a man running a red light and slamming into the side of his rig. Needless to say, they decided to save a few thousand dollars and Sam would pick it up himself. He knew all the roads, shortcuts to take, and dangerous spots to avoid.

Now, regardless of how well a driver Sam was or how careful he promised he would be, Carol was understandably uneasy. We had all grown accustomed to her uneasiness about driving any long distances. Before you left her house, you were sent off with adamant "BE CAREFUL!!!" It honestly worried her that you may not have heard her the first time so she always repeated it even more adamant than the first time.

"Here, take Max," she told him before he walked out the door. "He'll protect you." Sam loved his wife dearly, and even though this was only to pacify her, he belted Max into the front seat and gave her a kiss goodbye.

Things went well for the next couple of weeks. Carol got lonely, so I went out to eat with her almost every night for a week just so she didn't feel lonely. We invited her and her son over to watch movies so they would forget how much they missed him. Every couple of days, Sam would call and give her a list of his expenses and they would spend 15 minutes telling each other how much they missed and loved each other.

One Saturday afternoon, I had gone to my mother's house for the day. I had bought her an Internet unit and was busy showing her how it worked. The phone line was busy all day, so Carol could not get through. At about ten that night, we'd both decided to turn the machine off and give it a rest for the night. Within minutes, the phone rang.

"Lee, Sam's been in an accident." My heart sank. Suddenly, the memory came rushing back.

"Lee, Carol's been in an accident," was what she'd told me 3 years earlier. She'd woken me up at about 6:00 in the morning to tell me that she'd died before the ambulance even arrived. It was one of the worst days of my life. Carol Marie was my best friend. We held each other up when things got hard. I'll never forget seeing her later that morning, standing in the spot in front of my house where she used to park her car. She was just standing there, crying, "My baby!"

This was not a memory flood. This was real stuff. Sam was on his way back from California and only had the home for two days when a big storm hit the area that Sam was supposed to travel through to get home. He decided to avoid the storm and take an alternate route through Nevada.

The road was in the middle of a desert with a 25-foot embankment to either side of him. The road was well known for its high winds and had a reputation for blowing cars off the road as if they were made of paper. The road was not closed today, so this was the route he took.

Sam drove a semi for many years and was quite experienced in pulling the kind of load he had. Sam was an impeccable driver and what happened next was an act of God.

A gust of wind came along and threw the Ford-Diesel and the 40-ft vacation home over the side and down the 25-ft embankment. Immediately, the home came unhitched from the truck. Sam, being belted, was okay in the end with a broken hand and a couple of broken ribs.

Once all had landed, the propane tanks on the vacation home exploded immediately and the truck and home were ablaze instantly, and Sam had to crawl out a broken window for his life.

The insurance company paid for a bus ticket home (they'd offered him a plane ticket, but figured he'd had enough excitement for one lifetime) so Carol and I went down town to meet him. On the way home from the bus station, we were, of course, relieved that he was now home and safe. So, it was then we began our barrage of questions.

We'd asked what you might have asked.
"What happened, did you see it burn, how long till help arrived..." Most of the answers he gave were to say in the least, forgettable and predictable. We merely asked as if it was the thing to do. No one really wanted to think about it. But I'd asked him what he was thinking as the truck was rolling down the hill.

He said once the truck landed, and he noticed that it was on fire, he'd written himself off for dead. At this point, now that his dream was going up in smoke, he'd figured that this was it. Only in the process of the truck rolling and tumbling down the hill, Max landed on his lap.

It was this, he said, that reminded him it was not the end. In my own mind, it was the bear that saved his life. The bear reminded him, in that critical instant, that he had a family that loved him, and he had moments to get out.

So, here we were, on our way home. Sam had left the house with so much. Forty thousand dollars’ worth of truck, and fifty-five thousand dollars’ worth of vacation home. But walking back into his house, he came in a little bit poorer, wiser...maybe. But what was important was that he'd walked into the house with the same thing he left with: his life, his hat, and a Teddy Bear. And one thing extra, firsthand knowledge of the power of love.

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Ayla’s Christmas

By Kimberly Devine

The wood floor was cold under her tiny feet. She woke her younger sisters and watched as they drew back from the cold. Silently, the children crept down the stairs. Turning, they gasped at the magic Santa had brought.

The tree glimmered. It appeared as though tiny fairies with shimmering wings had settled among the Popsicle stick and glitter ornaments. It looked so much more mystical and beautiful than the night before. Boxes with ribbons lay on the ground surrounding the tree, they spread out and climbed up on nearby tables.

The children didn't move. They stared, taken by the wonder. Then with pack instinct, they ran back for the stairs.

Knock, knock, knock! Choruses of "Santa came! Santa left presents! Wake up!" buffeted against the door of their parents’ room. Their mother opened the door. "You go make coffee, Shelby. John, you climb into my bed and wake up Daddy. Vanessa, we have company coming, so pick out a pair of your pajamas."

"Who is coming, Mom?" They wanted to know.

"You'll see." She grinned and walked away with her secret.

The mother found Shelby rattling presents in the living room. "Mom, some of these are for Ayla. When can we bring them to her? Why did Santa bring them here?"

"You'll see." She grinned, "Is my coffee ready?"

The doorbell brought the family running from all over the house. Little Vanessa got to the door first and opened it with childish excitement. "Santa came!" She screamed before she even knew who was there. On the other side of the door, a tall, round woman with a tired face stood next to a small, fragile girl with ebony skin and sad eyes.

"Ayla!" The family crowded the child, hugging and kissing. The girl stared at them solemnly. At two, her parents had died in an accident. By all accounts, they had loved and supported the child and would have created a wonderful family. The girl's eyes were still happy at that time.

She had gone to live with her aunt, a woman trapped in poverty and addiction. For more than four years, the child had been the victim of verbal and physical abuse until she had become a ward of the state. She felt safer now, but her eyes were solemn, and she did not speak. Vanessa attended school with Ayla. The family had come to know then love the child.

Ayla stood on the porch wearing her prettiest dress and her hair in clips.

"Come in," said the father with a smile at the woman and girl.

"Mrs. Atherson, let me take your coat." The mother said, as the door closed again.
"Ayla, your dress is beautiful. Vanessa has pajamas if you would like to be more comfortable, but it is up to you."

Ayla solemnly shook her head. With a smile, the adults let the children bring Ayla into the living room. The paler girls and boy, jumped and ran to the presents, but it was Ayla's turn to stare in wonder.

She stopped walking and just stood with large sad eyes. A tear escaped and slid down her cheek. She turned to the mother, "I remember Christmas." She spoke, as the adults listened, afraid to talk. They were afraid to break the spell.

The fragile child stepped towards the mother, and the mother knelt. Both began crying, and the woman reached her arms to offer solace to the broken-hearted child.

The girl ran, wrapping her arms around the woman. She clung and wept. "I miss my mommy and daddy," she cried in hiccupping gasps. The other children watched. They were afraid and confused at the words and emotion from a child who had never shown either.

"I know, baby," the mother crooned.

The family and Ayla's caseworker waited in the sad tableau. The magic fairy lights of the tree still glistened.

Little Vanessa reached out and picked up a present. She walked it to where her mother knelt with the sobbing child. "Ayla, this one's for you. You can open the first present," she said.

The child turned and took the present. The mother turned and clung to her husband's legs, not yet able to stand.

Carefully, Ayla removed the ribbon. Then, she picked away the tape, set down the box and folded the shiny paper. She looked back at the box, at the doll inside, and she smiled. "Can you open this box?" she asked the father.

"Sure, sweetie." He bent down, stealing a hug from the child, and took the box to open. When, he gave the doll back to the girl, he spoke, "Ayla, we aren't your mommy and daddy, but we love you." He started. "We would really like you to come join our family."

She took the doll, her eyes solemn, and went to join the other kids at the tree.

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Walking in a Winter Wonderland

By Rodney Loftis

It can truly be said that some of the greatest things in life are given to us from the good Lord. Such was the case in the winter of 1990.

It was the night before Christmas Eve and we had the worst ice storm I had ever seen followed by snow. Living at the bottom of a hill and having bald tires on my car, I was going nowhere. Normally this wouldn't have bothered me except that my siblings and I always spent Christmas Eve with my father. I went to bed that night racking my brain on how on earth I was going to get from Bryant to Benton, a 14-mile trip.

Undoubtedly, I had a very restless night. By 3:00 in the morning I had been unable to sleep so I finally got up. I turned on the radio and soon learned that the temperature was -4 degrees with a wind chill of -10. This didn't help my situation at all. I opened the door of my trailer and looked outside.

The ground was covered by undisturbed snow and the sky was crystal clear. The stars were bright, and the moon lit the sky gently. Everything was glittery and white. Like a soft wind, the answer to my problem came to me. I was going to walk the 14 miles to Benton. At the same time my logic said "Whoa! Let's talk about this." Too late, my mind was set. I began bundling up. This consisted of two pair of pants, a shirt, a sweater, two pair of socks, a bomber coat, an overcoat, gloves, and a hat. I looked about three times bigger than I was. I put all my presents in a large trash bag, locked the door, and off I went.

Now Bryant, Arkansas is a very small town and at 3:30 in the morning it's not likely that you will meet anyone and even less someone you are close too on the street, but I did! My ex-girlfriend's parents ran the local paper route and here I was walking down the street looking like a large stuffed animal. They stopped and I explained my plans to them. They left thinking I had totally flipped I'm sure, but I didn't really care. A kind of happiness had taken a hold of me that was like a rush of electricity running through my body. This night had something in it that I didn't want to miss.

As I got out of Bryant, I began to wondering if I had lost my mind. I mean only a total idiot would be outside, in the dark, in below freezing weather, heading AWAY from home. "Turn back," my logic was screaming, but I just kept walking on.

Two miles outside of Bryant there are bauxite pits that are partially filled with water, which gives the impression of being a lake surrounded by mountains. With the winter weather this impression was even more beautiful. It reminded me of the Christmas carol "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" and I began singing it as I went on my way.

A little ways down the road, I came to the local Humane Society, which only consisted of a small building and a few pens for the strays that came in during the day. A large gate blocks the driveway. Often people will tie stray dogs to it when the place is closed to be collected by the care-giver when he arrives at work. A small dog was tied to the gate as I came up and realizing that probably the care-giver wouldn't be there for several hours I untied the dog and placed it over the gate so that it could get to one of the dog houses in the opened pens and stay warm. I left wishing I could have made sure it could get somewhere warm but hopefully the care-giver would be there soon.

My journey led me next to a bridge that crossed over a mining road that had a traffic light on it. The green and red lights gave off a strange, yet beautiful glow to the area around them. It was neat how this image fit so well with the night and the holiday season. I entered the community of Bauxite, which lies between Bryant and Benton. The road became hilly and the road a solid sheet of ice. Every step was a slippery task, and I knew I was probably going to fall on my rear end. That didn't worry me as much as the fact it was pitch black and I heard dogs barking all around me. Mental images flashed in my mind of me running like a wild man in the ice with fifty dogs nipping at my heels. I laughed at myself as the images faded. I tried to walk quietly past the dogs and at the same time keep my balance on the ice. I only saw one dog, but he didn't bother me.

I realized at this time that I wasn't cold, even though I had been walking for at least two or three hours. Soon the hills gave way to flat land again and I could see the lights of Benton in the distance. My guess was there about a mile left to go before the city limits began. I pictured my father's face when he saw me standing at the door of his music store, which he lived over. What would be even more interesting would be the look on his face when I told him how I got there.

As I arrived at the edge of Benton, the town looked like Bedford Falls in the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life". I stopped in the convenient store there to buy a cup of coffee. When I got to the counter to pay for it the clerk asked me how long I had been out in the cold and indicated the frozen mustache I now had. Knowing that she would probably never believe my story, I told her that I had been working on my car battery and just finished. She still didn't believe me. She gave me the coffee and wished me a Merry Christmas and I was on my way.

Thirty minutes later I arrived at my dad's music store. It was now 7:30 in the morning. My journey had taken me four hours to complete; I knocked on the door.

Dad was at the back of the store and was reluctant to open the door until I took off my hat and he recognized me. When I answered all the questions I knew were coming, I got the look I was expecting. Later my siblings arrived and like my dad their response was just as expected. "Have you lost your mind?"

We celebrated with presents and hugs. The best present I got that year was my walk on that special night. While most people slept, I learned by helping a stray dog get to shelter what good will toward men meant.

On this special night I saw the majestic work of the Lord in his wintery creation make what seemed like a crazy journey to Benton, a journey of shepherds and wise men. The same type of night that was traveled by a man and woman who would soon would lay their child in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes as angels sang on high. This was Christmas as it was meant to be seen and I was given the honor of seeing it face to face.

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Christmas in Singapore

By Lucille Ross

In the early 1960s, my husband was serving on the submarines based with the British base in Singapore. I realized that many of the young men who came to our house were half the way around the world from their families in the U.K. and it was not easy for them to be so far away from their families during the holidays.

Some of them were not even in their 20s except for one very large Marine. A letter may take two weeks to arrive, so I felt they were very lonely although they tried to be brave and brush it off.

Our first Christmas there, my husband suggested that we invite as many young British servicemen as our house would hold to spend the holidays with us. We were delighted when six accepted the invitation.

As they shyly entered the house, I greeted them and told them to make themselves at home and help themselves to the food or refreshments whenever they wanted and, above all, to enjoy their stay.

We couldn’t find a Christmas tree, so a three-foot imitation tree was decorated with tiny Chinese lanterns and tinsel and placed on a coffee table near the patio door. This wasn’t a great location because the monsoon wind blew it over a few times, and our cat chased a house lizard up the tree and also liked to bat at the dangling decorations. But the tree managed to last until New Year’s.

Christmas dinner was interesting because our traditional Canadian food was not familiar to them. It was fairly soon after the Second World War, so they weren’t exposed to TV programs featuring North American dishes.

Jellied salads were popular at the time, but no one touched it because they thought it was a dessert. They hesitated about the cranberry sauce that my mother mailed to me until they noticed that I was putting it on my turkey and then they asked me to “Pass the jam.”

They weren’t at all sure about the carrot pudding with the hard sauce, or the sweet potato pie.

In the morning, I inquired whether they wanted juice or grapefruit and how they wanted their eggs. One boy softly replied, “Grapefruit … just cut it in half, please … by itself.” This made me wonder what he imagined I was going to do with it if I had my way with it.

They were invited to help themselves to the food in the fridge whenever they wanted a snack. We had a stray kitten at the time, so I thought it was rather endearing when I noticed the big Marine cuddling the kitten under his shirt.

A few days later, when the turkey was reduced to bones, he confessed that he had found the kitten wrapped around the turkey in the fridge and he had been trying to warm it up under his shirt, but he hadn’t said anything about it because he didn’t want to “put anyone off the turkey.”

I can’t remember a more wonderful Christmas. The lads brought such gaiety and fun to us that year when we were also very far from our own home in Canada. They told stories, played music, sang, played games and talked of home. We felt honoured to have them as our guests.

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Small Gifts Generate Gigantic Joy

By Robert H.M. Killpack

Berlin, December 1949. The great and terrible war had ended in May 1945. The once-magnificent city of Berlin still lay in ruins. Homes were wherever they could be improvised . . .  in boarded-up ruins, dug-out basements, on farms in barns and sheds. Food could be obtained, but poverty's grasp made the necessities the main concern. Christmas with all of its trimmings would have to wait at least another year.

Every family had lost loved ones. Some families were separated by the patrolled borders of their divided land. The maimed were everywhere to be seen; many people were still missing. The orphanages were full, the children's faces were blank, their eyes expressionless and without hope. Few people lived in the same houses they had lived in before the war . . .  or even the same city.

Elders Wilson, Gregory and I, young LDS missionaries, visited three orphanages to give them quilts that had been sent from Utah. One orphanage was sponsored by the Catholic Church, one by the Lutheran Church and one was run by the government. There were tears in the eyes of the sisters as they gratefully accepted the quilts. The workers at the government-run orphanage asked if we would like to see the children. We accepted the invitation, completely unaware that a scene of human sadness and tragedy would be branded upon our memories for the rest of our lives.

The door opened on a dimly lit room with nine or 10 children seated around a table. They were mending their stockings. The stockings were covered so completely with patches that you could not distinguish the color of the original wool. Bunk beds lined the walls; they had been made from rough lumber salvaged from the ruins. There was a straw pallet covering the rough boards and, looking more like a neatly folded bundle of rags, a blanket at the foot of each bed.

Conversation failed us as we drove home that December night. A scripture came to mind: "But who so shall offend one of these little ones, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea." Surely, severe punishment awaits those who wage war.

It was decided that the children who came to our Sunday School must have a happy Christmas this year. Toys were made, some for girls and some for boys. A box of oranges was obtained, as were the ingredients for cookies, thanks to the U.S. military. Each child was to receive a sack of cookies, an orange and a toy.

Christmas Day fell on a Sunday, so during Sunday School the children were all assembled in a large auditorium in a bombed-out school. There was no heat, of course, so they all sat there in their coats. Sitting next to me on the front row was a dark-haired, dark-eyed little beauty. I cannot remember her name, but her face is etched in my memory to this day. She wore a blue snow suit obviously sent over from America. Over and over I heard her recite to herself the little poem children are expected to say to Father Christmas. "Lieber guter Weihnactsman shau mich nicht so boese an. Stecke deine Rute ein. Ich will immer artig sein." In Germany, Father Christmas is strict and ill-tempered. He carries a bundle of willows with which to punish the children who misbehave. The children's poems are meant to soften him. A literal translation of her poem is "Dear, kind Father Christmas, do not look so displeased with me. Put away your switches. I will always be good."

A child's name would be called and he would receive his presents. The first child, after saying his poem, received a sack of cookies, turned and started for his seat. He was stopped and given an orange, and he again started for his seat. Once more, he was stopped and was given a toy. He could not believe that he would be so fortunate as to get three presents.

My little friend became more and more anxious as she waited for her turn. I began to wonder if her name had been missed. I decided that if for some reason she did not get her presents, I would take her shopping as soon as the stores opened. I would buy her a real doll, Swiss chocolate and a whole box of cookies. Finally, last of all, her name was called. She jumped down, ran up on the stage, recited her poem, received her sack of cookies and started for her seat. She was called back and given an orange, and again she started for her seat. Again, she was called back and given a doll. With an expression of pure joy, she returned and cuddled her doll. These children, the real victims of the war, had been conditioned to believe that they could not expect to be as fortunate as other children, even though they had seen every other child receive three presents.

At 20 years of age, I had not thought much about the adage, "It is better to give than to receive," until that December of 1949. Not once did I think about what I might receive for Christmas that year but rather how I could make this Christmas memorable for someone else. My Christmases would never be the same after this one. This was a Christmas I would never forget. This was a Christmas I must never forget. This priceless experience was 49 years ago, and not one Christmas has passed that I have not mentally peered into that angelic, anxious little girl's face.

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The Green Christmas Ball

Author Unknown

If you have much, give of your wealth; if you have little, give of your heart.
~Arabian Proverb

By the third year of teaching I had begun to anticipate Christmas break more for the school holiday and less for the excitement of the children. I was teaching fourth grade and my students, combined with medical problems, had exhausted me. I prayed for strength enough to get me to 3:15. I just had to get through one of the hardest days of the school year.

I groaned out loud as the morning bell rang. Time to begin the circus. I trudged through the cold between my mobile classroom (nice name for a trailer) and into the overly heated school building. I sighed and turned the corner. Twenty-two smiling faces greeted me on the fourth grade bus hall. I forced myself to return their smiles and enthusiastic hugs. "Seven and a half hours to go," I thought to myself.

Back through the cold and into the room they chattered, comparing plans for the vacation. I had to remove one student from each arm and one from around my waist before I could take a seat at my desk for my morning duties. Before I could find my roll book, my desk was covered with cards and gifts followed by a chorus of "Merry Christmas" wishes.

"Oh, thank you," I must have responded a million times. Each gift was truly special to me, despite my sour mood. It was kind of them to think of me.

After the tornado had calmed to hurricane levels, I heard a small voice say my name. I looked up to see Brandon standing shyly by my desk, holding a small, round gift. "This is for you."

"Thank you, Sweetheart." I hugged him and laid it on my desk with the others.

"Um, could you open it now?"

I stopped my frantic pace to give him my full attention. This was important to him. "Sure."

I gently tugged at the crumpled paper and mounds of tape. "Careful," he said. "It's breakable."

"Oh, okay," I assured him. Slowly I unwrapped a small, green Christmas tree ornament, complete with a hook already attached. It dawned on me what he had done.

"You know he just pulled that off his tree!" a nearby student commented rudely.

I swallowed some tears. "Yes, I know," I answered. "That makes it even more special."

"It's my favorite," Brandon informed me.

“It'll be my favorite, too. I don't have anything green on my tree."

He beamed.

Later that day, during a rare quiet moment, I sat turning the ornament over in my hands. Was I really so important to this child that he had searched for something to give me? His mother did not hand him a gift bag with an elegant bow as he ran for the bus. He had considered this gift himself.
Now every year as I delicately pull a green Christmas ball from my ornament box I remember the profound impact adults have on children. More importantly, I remember the impact my students have on me.

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