The Greatest Gift
I will never forget the year
that we gave away Christmas.
Scott and I had been married
about 10 years. At the time we had 5 children: David was 8, Abigail was 6,
Timothy and Sarah were 5, and Peter was five months old. We had chosen to
homeschool our children, so that kept me really busy while Scott was at work.
One day in early December
Scott came home to the usual hubbub: Timothy, Sarah, and Abigail running around
the house playing some version of tag; me rocking Peter on my hip to stop his
crying while simultaneously trying to explain pronouns to David.
He stood there for a moment
and then loudly announced, “We are going to give away our Christmas this year.”
Everyone stopped. Even Peter stopped crying.
I stared at Scott. “What…are
you talking about?”
He sighed. “We are so
blessed. And we take it for granted. I feel convicted- we need to give away our
Christmas this year to people who need it more than us.”
Over the next few days the
two of us had many conversations.
Originally I was not on board with his plan. He wanted to give away everything:
our Christmas tree, all the Christmas presents we had bought (both for each
other and the kids), and even all the food that was planned for our big
Christmas Eve dinner. I was against nearly all of this; I saw no reason why we
needed to go to this extreme. But he kept insisting that this was what we
needed to do. Finally after much prayer, the Lord convicted me that I should
submit to my husband and do this thing he wished, even if it seemed extreme to
me. When I told him this he smiled.
“I love you Annie. This is
going to be so amazing. I just know it.”
I couldn’t help smiling back.
“I certainly hope so. But Scott, who are we going to give our Christmas to?”
He considered this for a
moment. “I don’t know yet. But I’m sure God will provide us with some
opportunities.”
And we left it at that.
It was not as difficult to
explain it to the children as I thought it was going to be. Scott told them
that this year we were going to give Christmas to people who wouldn’t have a
chance to have it otherwise. Together as a family we talked about how God wants
us to be giving and unselfish. The two older ones weren’t sure about it at
first. Scott assured me that they would come around. Every night I prayed that
they would, and that God would send us the opportunities that Scott was so sure
about. We took all the presents we had bought and marked and sorted them as
either for a boy, girl, woman, or man. Scott said that if we didn’t get the
opportunity to give them all away, whatever was left over on Christmas morning
we would keep. I could tell he was hoping that wouldn’t happen though.
For a while nothing happened.
Then one day in mid-December, Scott came home extremely excited. The first opportunity
had shown itself. One of his coworkers had a 5-year-old daughter who had
cancer. As she had needed to have many costly treatments over the year, her
parents now had no money to buy her Christmas presents. As Scott told me the
story, my heart went out to this family. Of course we had to help. We loaded up
all the presents we had, bundled up the kids, and paid a visit to this family.
Mr. and Mrs. Anderson were
very welcoming. We sent the kids to go play while we sat and talked with the
parents. It amazed me how much they had been through in that year. They had
watched their daughter, Mackenzie, go from a normal little girl to a very sick
little girl. As we talked I realized I wanted to do whatever we could to help
them. When we gave them the presents they didn’t want to accept them at first.
But Scott was adamant. “We
want you to have these. The best Christmas gift we could have is knowing that
we helped you.”
I hugged Mrs. Anderson and
told her I would be praying for her family. As we drove home that night I
started realizing that Scott’s idea might not have been so strange after all.
Another week passed
uneventfully. I prayed for the Anderson family everyday. We had put up our
Christmas tree and decorated it. Seeing its twinkling lights always made me
smile.
One afternoon I was at the
dining room table checking some school work. The younger 3 kids were down for a
nap, while the older 2 were playing outside.
Suddenly David and Abigail
came running inside screaming, “Mommy, Mommy, the neighbor’s house is on
fire!!!”
“What?!”
David had a horrified look on
his face. “No Mom! It really is! The Stanleys’ house is on fire!” I jumped up.
“Stay here with the younger
kids!” I commanded. Then I ran out the door into the front yard. The Stanleys
lived 2 houses away from us. And there were large, orange flames rolling out of
the front window. I called 911 from my cell phone, then ran over to their front
yard. Their whole family was standing there, just watching in disbelief. Mrs.
Stanley saw me coming.
“Oh Annie it’s just
horrible!”
“Sarah- what happened?”
She shook her head. “It was
the Christmas tree I think. I hope the damage won’t be too bad…”
I placed a reassuring hand on
her shoulder. The fire trucks drove up then. I realized there was nothing more
I could do, so I hugged Sarah and went back home. I told David and Abigail that
the Stanleys were okay.
“How did the fire start?”
David wanted to know.
“Well they think it started
with the Christmas tree.”
“They won’t have a tree for
Christmas? That’s so sad,” said Abigail.
They were both silent for a
moment. Then David had a sudden inspiration.
“Hey Mom! Couldn’t we give
them our tree?”
I considered this for a
moment. “Well I don’t know why not. But we’ll talk to your father about it when
he gets home.”
Later that evening Sarah
called to let me know that everything was alright. The fire had not spread very
far, so they had very minimal damage. But their Christmas tree was all but
ashes.
When I approached Scott with
David’s idea to give our Christmas tree to the Stanleys, he was surprised.
“But you love the Christmas
tree.”
I nodded. “Yes I do. But they
need it a whole lot more than we do right now.”
He grinned. “Let’s take it
over right now.”
So we did. The Stanelys were
very surprised, and very happy.
“It’s so beautiful,” sighed
Sarah.
“And the best part is, it’s
artificial, so I don’t think it will burn down easily.” I smiled at her.
We went to bed that night
with a big empty space in our living room, but our hearts were full.
It was only 1 week until Christmas.
The excitement of the holiday was upon all of us. It didn’t even matter that we
didn’t have any presents. No one cared that we didn’t have a Christmas tree.
Not only was our family excited regardless, but the children kept talking about
the gifts we had given away.
“Do you remember the look on
Mrs. Stanley’s face when we brought her our tree?”
“Won’t Mackenzie be surprised
when she sees all her presents on Christmas morning?”
And so on. It was at this
point that I was incredibly thankful that we had decided to do this whole
thing. I told Scott some of the things the children had been saying.
“You know, I wasn’t really
sure of your idea at first. But now, I’m so thankful we have done it. It has
really helped to show the kids, and me, how we should be unselfish and ready to
help others,” I told him.
He smiled at me and took my
hand. “I can’t take any credit for this. It was God’s idea.”
A few short days later, it
was Christmas Eve. We normally made a big Christmas Eve dinner and enjoyed it
together. At about 2 in the afternoon I started thinking about fixing this
large dinner. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that we
didn’t really need a huge dinner. But maybe there was someone who did. I
thought about this some more. I called our pastor. Did he know of anyone in the
church who would benefit from a Christmas dinner? He said he did. One of the
elderly couples in our church, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. They had no family living
nearby. Normally, one of their children would come visit them on Christmas, but
this year they had to celebrate alone. I thanked him, hung up, and got to work.
Four hours later I had an elaborate feast prepared! There was ham, mashed
potatoes and gravy, stuffing, rolls, yams, and pecan pie. Scott helped me pack
it all up and we took it to the Johnsons. Once we got there, we rang their
doorbell. Once they opened the door we all started singing “Silent Night.” Then
we brought in all the food. Mrs. Johnson’s face just lit up. She looked at her
husband.
“Now we can invite all of the
neighbors over for dinner!” We all laughed.
That evening our family ate a
normal meal of macaroni and cheese with hot dogs. But everyone agreed it tasted
amazing.
The next morning, it was
Christmas. Our whole family gathered in our living room where Scott read the
story of Christ’s birth. Then we talked about what we had done to give away
Christmas, and how that was a way to show Christ’s love to others. We had barely
concluded this when the doorbell rang. Scott and I looked at each other. We
hadn’t invited anyone over. I opened the door to find the Stanleys, with
steaming dishes of food in hand.
“Merry Christmas!!” They all
yelled.
“What’s this about?” I asked
laughing.
“Well dear, your family was
so kind to us, we just had to return the favor. So we were wondering if you
would like to share Christmas dinner with us?” replied Sarah.
We invited them in and had a
delicious meal. As we were finishing up, the doorbell rang again. This time, it
was the Andersons.
“You were so kind to us,”
said Mr. Anderson. “We wanted to do something for you. So I brought something
for the children.” He revealed five hand-made wooden sleds. The children
squealed a delighted thank you.
As I stood outside watching
my children sled down every hill they could manage to find, I thought about
what I had learned that Christmas season. By submitting to my husband and
giving away Christmas, God had retaught me one of His basic truths: “It is more
blessed to give than to receive.” I thought of the Gift He had sent so long
ago, the reason we celebrate Christmas. And I realized that the greatest gift
we can ever get, is to give.
