Surprising Christmas Gift, Part 3

Spirituality Column #162
December 15, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Surprising Christmas Gift, Part 3
By Bob Walters

I’m trying to think of the biggest Christmas surprise I’ve ever received, and it was probably the electric train when I was 5 or 6 years old.

Having asked Santa specifically for a train, it was nearly devastating to find another “Santa” gift was in the living room for me Christmas morning. I threw a fit because there was no train, got spanked because that’s what parents did circa 1960, and when things settled down discovered a really nice electric train – beyond my expectations – was set up in the basement because it didn’t fit in the living room.

I remember being embarrassed – and really, really surprised – more than I remember the spanking.

Then there was the year I ruined any sense of surprise, because being 10 years old and sneaky enough to figure out where mom and dad hid the presents (in a crawl-space behind the basement furnace), I waited until I was alone in the house and looked through every gift they’d bought.

Holy cow. Talk about an unsatisfying success. What fun is Christmas if there is no surprise? I never again searched for the stash.

And please let me add that even as a kid, I always spent more time fantasizing about what I could give as a Christmas present than what I would get. I know … weird kid … but I did. It’s probably a sign of some behavioral disorder, no doubt triggered by the Christmas spanking some years early. But I digress.

These days, after 20-some Christmases as a father, for sure it is the giving part of Christmas that provides the season’s most significant secular joy. Giving is better than getting.

But let’s step back from Christmas lists and Santa visits, and talk about the true meaning of Christmas: God the Father’s gift of His incarnation among us as Jesus Christ.

And the Word became flesh. John 1:14.

That God loved humanity enough to come alive humbly among us, to feel our temptation and pain, is gift enough. Yet to go onto the Cross and defeat death, invite each one of us to live with Him forever as a part of God’s perfection, love and eternal life, is quite a bit more Christmas present than anyone would have imagined.

If only we could help give Christ, humbly and with love – and with heavenly peace – to others at Christmas.

It’s surprising when we don’t try.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) uses that train story to make a Christmas point every couple of years.