Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  December seems to have flown by.  And now, I sit here at my computer wondering if I am ready.  There is so much to do.  Most treat plates have been delivered but a few remain to be handed out today.  We have the Mormon missionaries coming over for a Christmas Eve lunch and I have sourdough biscuits, sweet potato casserole, and dressing to prepare.  There’s cinnamon rolls to make tomorrow night for Christmas morning breakfast.  Oh, and the dog needs to go to the groomer’s tomorrow morning or she won’t be able to even see what’s in her stocking!  The Christmas presents are all wrapped and ready.  And I am so excited for the kids to see their gifts.

But after watching this video I wonder…..what did I give for the Savior?

Christmas is a wonderful time of year.  I look forward to it and relish every Christmas carol, every special Christmas movie, every gift that is made or purchased out of love and thoughtfulness.  But the real gifts of the season are the ones without a price tag.  The ones that come straight from the heart and cannot be wrapped. Those are the gifts that matter most.

And as the Christmas season winds down I find myself wishing that I had given more of those special gifts.  And I am a little sad that I didn’t do more.  But the good news is that Christmas really never ends!  I don’t have to feel sad about not doing enough this season because Christmas is really about love, and love is always in season.

I am reminded of one of my favorite Christmas songs….The Secret of Christmas.  It’s not very well known, but the message is beautiful and true:

May we all find ways to do those “Christmas things” well into the New Year and may those acts welcome in next year’s Christmas with the joy and happiness that come from serving Christ through serving others.

Thanks to Audrey for sharing her favorite Christmas story last week.  That story displayed the type of giving that “hurts so good”.  I will share with you my all time favorite Christmas story.  It has that same kind of tugging at your heartstrings.  It always brings on the true spirit of Christmas in just three little words.  I hope you enjoy it and will share it with your family, along with some candlelight and hot chocolate of course.

“For years now whenever Christmas pageants are talked about in a certain little town in the Midwest, someone is sure to mention the name of Wallace Purling.  Wally’s performance in one annual production of the Nativity play has slipped into the realm of legend.  But the old timers who were in the audience that night never tire of recalling exactly what happened.

Wally was nine that year and in the second grade, though he should have been in the fourth.  Most people in town knew that he had difficulty in keeping up.   He was big and clumsy, slow in movement and mind.  Still, Wally was well liked by the other children in his class, all of whom were smaller than he, though the boys had trouble hiding their irritation if the uncoordinated Wally asked to play ball with them.

Most often they’d find a way to keep him off the field, but Wally would hang around anyway–not sulking, just hoping.  He was always a helpful boy, a willing and smiling one, and the natural protector, paradoxically, of the underdog.  Sometimes if the older boys chased the younger ones away, it would always be Wally who’d say, “Can’t they stay?  They’re no bother.”

Wally fancied the idea of being a shepherd with a flute in the Christmas pageant that year, but the play’s director, Miss Lumbard, assigned him to a more important role.  After all, she reasoned, the Innkeeper did not have too many lines, and Wally’s size would make his refusal of lodging to Joseph more forceful.

And so it happened that the usual large, partisan audience gathered for the town’s Yuletide extravaganza of  staffs and creches, of beards, crowns, halos and a whole stage full of squeaky voices.  No one on stage or off was more caught up in the magic of the night than Wallace Purling.  They said later that he stood in the wings and watched the performance with such fascination that from time to time Miss Lumbard had to make sure he didn’t wander onstage before his cue.

Then the time came when Joseph appeared, slowly, tenderly guiding Mary to the door of the inn.  Joseph knocked hard on the wooden door set into the painted backdrop.  Wally the Innkeeper was there, waiting.  “What do you want?” Wally said, swinging the door open with a brusque gesture.

“We seek lodging.”

“Seek it elsewhere.” Wally looked straight ahead but spoke vigorously.  “The inn is filled.”

“Sir, we have asked everywhere in vain.  We have traveled far and are very weary.”

“There is no room in this inn for you.” Wally looked properly stern.

“Please, good innkeeper, this is my wife, Mary.  She is heavy with child and needs a place to rest.  Surely you must have some small corner for her.  She is so tired.”

Now, for the first time, the Innkeeper relaxed his stiff stance and looked down at Mary.  With that, there was a long pause, long enough to make the audience a bit tense with embarrassment.

“No!  Begone!” the prompter whispered from the wings.

“No!” Wally repeated automatically. “Begone!”

Joseph sadly placed his arm around Mary, and Mary laid her head upon his shoulder, and the two of them started to move away.  The Innkeeper did not return inside his inn, however.  Wally stood there in the doorway, watching the forlorn couple.  His mouth was open, his brow creased with concern, his eyes filling unmistakably with tears.

“Don’t go, Joseph,” Wally called out.  “Bring Mary back.”  And Wallace Purling’s face grew into a bright smile.  “You can have my room.”

Some people in town thought that the pageant had been ruined.  Yet there were others–many others–who considered it the most Christmasy of all Christmas pageants they had ever seen.”

Source:  Dina Donahue reprinted from the “Baptist Herald” (Dec. 15, 1968)