The Best Christmas Gifts, Ever
I recently reached out to a friend of mine — a young, lovely, successful professional woman — to make sure she had plans for Christmas. I remember well the Christmases I spent alone as a single woman in the years I lived in cities far from my family. I wanted her to know she was most welcome at my traditional Italian meatless Christmas Eve dinner if she was free. My friend had a better plan.
She told me she planned to sing in her church choir at the 10 p.m. Christmas Eve Mass. On Christmas morning, she was hosting an open house for friends who live away from family.
She explained, “I realized that people often have plans for Christmas dinner, but not necessarily anything on Christmas morning or afternoon. The next year I started the open house. And I did discover that many people indeed had no plans for Christmas morning and, sadly, some people had no plans at all for Christmas Day. My party was the only Christmas celebration they had.”
That’s it, I thought! Now that’s a real Christmas present.
I have to chuckle when I pass by the over-crowded parking lots at Walmart and Target or see the long lines at the check-out counter at Barnes and Noble. People spending money to buy all sorts of trinkets and objects as Christmas presents for friends and family that they probably don’t need, won’t use and likely will end up in landfills when the best gifts are actually so simple: the giving of our time and our presence.
At my Poetry & Spirituality group this month, one of our members, a fine poet named Patti shared that she can’t get out much anymore without accompaniment. This Christmas, she is writing each of her grandchildren a letter as their present. She wondered what her grandchildren would think of their gifts. Our group assured her that this would probably be the one Christmas gift her grandchildren will remember and cherish the most.
Our poetry group leader, the superb poet Lisa Breger — a modern-day mystic herself — reminded our friend who is experiencing health challenges that “allowing other people to help us is itself an act of giving.”
Others in the group shared Christmas memories in their poems. Joan remembered how her mother would store up presents throughout the year when there were sales, and the family would sneak onto a forest preserve on a Naval base as a way of getting a free tree:
… my dad
had been quick to chop and flee
Keep watch, he said, for the MP’s …
Another of our poets, Jessika, wrote of awakening to the needs of the marginalized and more vulnerable by going with her mother to the Grange Hall in Moscow, Idaho. There, the less fortunate were fed at potluck dinners and received other assistance from people she looked up to:
The meetings started with the officers marching in
with military precision, necks draped with royal blue collars and gold braid.
Mrs. Cone, Mr. and Mrs. Dahl, Mr. Art Heich, the fiddle champion.
Jessika’s mother’s motto was: “Care: it’s the secret to life.” Words, Jessika said in the poem, that her mother asked to have engraved on her tombstone.
Our poet Linda offered a poem on another often-overlooked gift: that of paying attention.
Pay attention to your breathing, said the yogi as we moved into Savasana,
deep breaths, deep and slow, in and out, deep and slow, in and out, in and out, in and out
Gifts all.
Finally, this gift. I received a text from a friend of mine named Charlie, a fellow lay associate of a Benedictine monastery, who had joined our “Benedictine Footprints” contemplative retreat/pilgrimage to Italy last summer. Charlie is a robust, white-haired, bearded man who enjoys playing Santa Claus for children. He said that after the Christmas program finished at one of the local schools, a little brown-haired boy remained behind and tugged at his sleeve.
The boy asked Santa to bring his family a Christmas tree this year. Charlie later spoke with the school staff and learned that the boy is being raised by relatives in a household of five other children and that the family is indeed experiencing a difficult time. My friend Charlie writes:
Santa, his wife and youngest daughter chipped in and bought him a tree and all the trimmings. They sent him home with it today.
I’m sure that boy will remember the surprise gift he received this year for the rest of his life. Most of all, I believe he will recall the generosity of a stranger and hopefully emulate that giving spirit later in his own life.
I have many stories of unexpected Christmas gifts in my own life. I’ll offer just one.
My first Christmas in Chicago as a young single woman working for The Wall Street Journal, I couldn’t get enough time off to spend the holidays with my parents and brother living in another state. To put myself in the spirit of the season, I’d brought toys to the “Toys for Tots” box, took tags off the Christmas “giving tree: at church and left presents that families had requested. On Christmas morning, I was alone. I lay in bed feeling sorry for myself.
Then the phone rang. A friend with four children said he was on his way over to my apartment, and if I was free, would I like to spend Christmas Day with his family. Would I like to? Would I ever!
It ended up being one of the most memorable Christmases. I still have the red holiday sweater those children — who are now adults — gave me that day. Afterward I spent many wonderful Christmas Eves and Christmas Days as a single woman with friends kind enough to welcome me into their homes. They were the inspiration for my now hosting open house celebrations on Christmas Eve and New Years Day for others who might be away from family on the holidays.
We might be tempted to wonder: What difference can one gesture? As you can see from these stories: a lot. Way leads to way, Robert Frost famously wrote in a poem. You could also say generosity builds on generosity, hospitality on hospitality.
As we approach Christmas, instead of running from store to store in search of things to give, can we seek to give the best gift: the gift of our time, our presence, ourselves?
