Sharing Christmas, page 15
“I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11.)
What would the Father say on Jesus' birthday? He might say: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoso-ever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16.)
To his disciples, Christ said: “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8.)
“For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” (Luke 12:48.)
Here is a great principle to consider when giving a gift: “If a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God.” (Moroni 7:8.)
“For God loveth a cheerful giver.” (2 Corinthians 9:7.)
I really like this last scripture, which summarizes it all: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35.)
I declare in the name of Jesus Christ that he gave all and did not think of receiving anything. It truly touches me to think about Christmas and about giving.
What will be the greatest gift of all? I think that the greatest and most difficult gifts to give are those of our time, our talents, and ourselves.
Some years ago when we lived in Peru our family decided that we wanted to improve our Christmases. After studying the scriptures and understanding the meaning of giving the best we could, we set some guidelines for the Cook family. We were determined to follow these simple guidelines to try to better our Christmas that year:
1. We would try not to buy anything for each other from a store.
2. The presents that we would give would be made with our own hands. We would give of our time to the ones we loved.
3. Regarding our homemade gifts, we could not purchase any materials with which to make them. We had to use materials already on hand within our home. (This constituted a great challenge.)
4. We were to find the best way to give of our time, our talents, and ourselves, to truly involve ourselves in giving to others.
Some interesting things happened that Christmas. First, one of our young sons decided to make a key holder for Mother's keys. We had many keys but nowhere to put them and they frequently got mixed up. What a mess it was! We decided that a holder would be an excellent gift for Mom.
We began by looking for a piece of wood. I wanted to buy it, but my son reminded me that we couldn't. Let me tell you that we spent an hour getting a little piece of wood ready that would have taken us minutes to buy. When we tried to sand it, we realized that we didn't have anything to sand it with. So we had to invent a way to sand it, and we did.
We soon came up against the problem of painting the wood. Fortunately, we had a little yellow paint in the house, but we were stuck without a paintbrush. Again I thought of going to the store, but my son said: “Dad, someone had to invent the paintbrush. How did he do it?” We made a paint-brush by pulling some straw out of my wife's broom, and though I had my doubts about how it would work, I can tell you sincerely that we made a brush as excellent as the best brush in any store.
We then had a problem with the hooks for the keys. We solved that problem by bending nails in the shape of hooks, doing each with love and lots of patience. And on Christmas morning, this young boy had a delightful experience as he gave his mother a true gift from his heart. We still have that key holder after all these years.
One daughter found a rock, painted it with the same yellow paint (since it was all we had), and wrote on it: “Mom, I love you.” We still have that, too—a rock prepared with pure love.
Another son made a llama with straw also pulled from the broom. (Poor broom, it almost disappeared.) This boy, our eldest, really created a quality item. It probably would have sold well in any store in Peru. Interestingly enough, I add again, we still have it today.
If you're not able to make something by hand, how about offering “gift certificates” for services? These can be given anonymously to neighbors, indicating things such as: “The snow in the front of your house will be shoveled all this week by neighborhood ‘angels,'” or “We lovingly owe you two lawn mowings,” or “This certificate is good for two loaves of homemade bread.” Such gifts warm the heart of the giver sometimes even more than that of the receiver.
We have enjoyed giving gift certificates to family members. Some examples are: “I will make your bed seven times,” from one child to another, or “I will do the dishes three times.” Mother likes this one: “Six hours of peace and harmony.”
To my mother, who lives far away, I gave a certificate promising to send twelve letters, one each month in the coming year. This gift to her was better than anything I could have bought in a store because it showed more profound love, more giving of myself. As I evaluate what Christ gave, I always come to the conclusion that he really gave of himself time and time again. In his own manner he gave the best gifts a person could give.
If I were to summarize what a person might do to have a great Christmas, I would suggest:
1. I will do acts of charity for others.
2. I will seek to give of myself spiritually to others.
3. I will find someone to help and to pray for.
4. I will secretly fast for someone who has a problem.
5. As an offering to God, I will find someone who really needs a blessing and provide it.
6. I will extend my love to all.
7. I will comfort the sick.
8. I will visit widows and the homeless and share with them the scriptures.
9. I will sing with someone who needs to sing.
These will be real gifts, to give as Jesus gave of himself. As I understand things, this is the true evidence of Christ being among us. In the last days, the King will say:
“Ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
“For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
“Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
“Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
“When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
“Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:34–40.)
I testify to you of the Savior Jesus Christ, the King of all the world, a divine being, the one who truly has all power in heaven and on earth, who has given us such a great example that it cannot be ignored. He is one of our brothers who has told us that he will call us not servants, but friends. Let us look within ourselves so that we may become like him. When we have his fellowship, we will think about him, and as we let our desires and actions be like his, we will become like him.
President David O. McKay said it well: “That man is truly great who is most Christlike. What you sincerely think in your heart of Jesus Christ will determine what you are and will largely determine what your acts will be.” By choosing Jesus Christ as our ideal, we create within ourselves a desire to be like him.
I declare with confidence, faith, full knowledge, and peace that Jesus is the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world, our personal Savior. May we honor him at Christmas and always, and may our actions demonstrate our deep faith in him.
THE LEAST OF THESE
Richard M. Siddoway
We married in August and settled into a small apartment near the university where both of us went to school. We each had a year until graduation and scrimped and struggled through the autumn quarter. Now Christmas was approaching and we had little money between us to squander on Christmas gifts. We managed to put aside enough money for winter-quarter tuition and books, and that had taken all we had except for rent, utilities, and food.
We walked through the department stores of Salt Lake arm in arm with the confidence of better days ahead. My bride paused before a winter coat, caressing it with her eyes and fingers. Together we looked at the price tag—seventy-five dollars. Tuition for a quarter was eighty-five dollars. We both knew the coat was out of the question. Her old coat, seam-split and stained, would have to do another year. But Christmas is a time for dreaming and hoping, and her gaze lingered long upon the coat.
When I received my paycheck on December 20, we paid what bills we owed and discovered we had twenty dollars left for Christmas. Together we found a Christmas tree lot where a stack of broken branches lay. For fifty cents they let us fill the trunk of our old car with pine boughs. We drove home and wired them together into the semblance of a Christmas tree. With a borrowed string of lights and some handmade ornaments, we created our first Christmas tree.
We agreed to spend no more than five dollars apiece in shopping for each other. While my wife drove the car to do her shopping, I walked the half dozen blocks to the Grand Central drugstore to see how far I could stretch five dollars. After considerable searching I selected a paperback novel my wife had commented about and a small box of candy. Together they came to $4.75. As I approached the checkout stand, I was met with a long line of shoppers, each trying to pay as quickly as possible and get on with the bustle of the season. No one was smiling.
I waited perhaps half an hour, and only three people were ahead of me in the line when I became aware that the line had ground to a halt. The clerk was having an animated discussion with an elderly customer. He was tall and thin, with an enormous shock of white hair that had been carefully parted and combed. He was wearing a pair of navy blue slacks that ended nearly three inches above his shoes. His plaid shirt was missing a button, and the sleeves of the shirt protruded two or three inches past the sleeves of his light jacket. He had an ancient leather wallet in his hand.
“Sir,” barked the clerk, “the price of insulin has gone up. I'm sorry, but we have no control over that. You need four more dollars.”
“But it has been the same price ever since my wife started taking it. I have no more money. She needs the medication.” The man's neck was turning red and he was obviously uncomfortable with the situation. “I must have the insulin. I must.”
The clerk shook her head. “I'm sorry, sir, but I have no control over the prices. You need four more dollars.”
The woman immediately ahead of me in line began to mutter under her breath. She had other purchases to make and resented this clot in the
artery of Christmas shopping. “Hurry up, hurry up,” she whispered loudly.
“Please let me take the insulin and I will bring you back the four dollars,” pleaded our elderly friend. The clerk was adamant; he had to pay before he got the medicine.
The man standing behind him put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Come on, pop, you're holding up the line. Pay the lady and let's get on with it.”
“I don't have any more money,” he replied. As he turned to face the man behind him, I saw his face for the first time. He had enormous bushy white eyebrows that seemed out of place on his emaciated face, but complemented the thin white moustache on his upper lip. “I've been buying insulin here for years. Always it has been the same price. Now it's four dollars more. My wife”—he threw up his hands in despair—”must have it.” He turned back to the clerk.
The lady in front of me grew more agitated. The dozen or so people behind me began craning their necks to see what was holding up the line. Suddenly I stepped out of line, reached into my pocket, withdrew my wallet, and handed five dollars to the old man. “Merry Christmas,” I said.
He hesitated a moment, then his blue eyes grew moist as he took the money. “God bless you, my son.”
I turned and walked back into the store aisles. I counted the money I had remaining in my wallet— four dollars. I replaced the box of candy on the shelf and got back into line to pay for the novel. The line moved slowly, but at last I made my purchase.
Snow was falling in soft white feathery flakes as I walked up the hill toward our apartment. The lights from the city reflected from the clouds above and gave a glow to my surroundings that matched the glow I felt inside. I turned in our driveway and saw an envelope stuck in our screen door. I removed it and found written on the front of the envelope simply, “Matthew 25:40.”
I opened the door, stepped inside, and turned on the light. I ripped open the end of the envelope and withdrew a hundred-dollar bill. There was no other message. With wonder I folded the envelope and stuffed it in my pocket as I heard my wife drive in. She brought in her sack of purchases and shooed me out of our apartment while she did her wrapping.
It was only after I had driven to the department store and purchased the winter coat for my wife that I took time to get out my Bible and read the scripture written on the envelope: “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
To this day I have no idea who blessed our lives that Christmas.
OUR GIVING CHRISTMASES
Emily Smith Stewart
We believe in Christmas. To us, the George Albert Smith family, Christmas is one of the most blessed and precious days the years brings. We are striving to make each Christmas as loving and living as our parents made them for us....
Preparations for Christmas at our home have always been very special. Our plans were extensive and carefully laid, the money budgeted, the gifts painstakingly chosen. Father and mother always insisted that whatever means we had to use for Christmas must be spread over a wide territory, for they planned that we should learn for ourselves that it's always “more blessed to give than to receive.” We began with the wonderful box that mother always prepared for the Relief Society, and into which she put all of the goodies that we planned for ourselves, including mince pies and plum puddings with a wonderful buttery sauce. We assembled the contents of this Relief Society Christmas box for days. After everything was ready, it was loaded on the sled and dragged on top of the crisp, icy snow to the Relief Society room at the 17th Ward. Thus began our custom, one that has always been father's, of providing Christmas for those persons that others forgot. He has always considered the fact that where people were well remembered, they might do without his remembering them in a substantial way, other than to extend his sincere good wishes, while gifts and fancy holiday foods should be taken to those too frequently overlooked.
Christmas Eve at our house began family festivities. We hung our stockings in front of the fireplace in the dining room. Father always hung a great, huge stocking, because he assured us that Santa never could get all the things he wanted in just a regular sock. And then, to add to the gaiety of the occasion, each year he brought his tall rubber boots up from the basement and stood one at either side of the fireplace in the dining room.
After stockings were hung, we spread a table for Santa Claus' supper ... a bowl of rich milk and bread and a generous wedge of mince pie. We wrote a note to encourage him on his way and went to bed, but it seemed morning would never come. The length of Christmas eve night and the shortness of Christmas day was something we could never understand.
No matter how excited we children were, we never were permitted to go downstairs until we were washed, combed and fully dressed. Then we had morning prayers and sat down to breakfast, the worst breakfast of the year because it took so much time and seemed to hinder our getting to our stockings. Always there was something very unusual and very special down in the toe. First, we laughed and laughed over the things Santa Claus put in father's boots—coal and kindling and vegetables; and then we were offended because we thought Santa was not very kind to our father, who is always generous with everyone else. After this first experience with bootsful of jokes on Christmas, we bought something very special for father the next year to make up for the slight Santa Claus had made.
After we had enjoyed our toys and gifts in the stockings, the folding doors into the parlor were pushed aside and we beheld our twinkling candlelighted Christmas tree. Under the colorful, green tree were the packages for friends and the rest of the family. These were distributed and all had a very happy, festive time.
After our own mirth and merriment had partially subsided, father always took us with him to make the rounds of the forgotten friends that he habitually visited on Christmas. I was a very little girl when I went with father to see how the other half of the people lived. I remember going down a long alley in the middle of a city block where there were some very poor houses. We opened the door of one tiny home and there on the bed lay an old woman, very sad and alone. As we came in, tears ran down her cheeks, and she reached over to take hold of father's hand as we gave her our little remembrances. “I am grateful to you for coming,” she said, “because if you hadn't come I would have had no Christmas at all. No one else has remembered me.” We thoroughly enjoyed this part of our day.
Christmas dinner was another high spot in our Christmas celebration. We always had very wonderful Christmas dinners, usually turkey dinners served on our beautiful blue-lace plates.
One Christmas that I shall never forget is the one when father was very seriously ill. Expenses had been extremely high and it seemed that we were not going to be able to afford much of a Christmas. Mother longed to provide our usual happy Christmas, but she knew she could not do so and still pay the tithing due before the end of the year, and which had accumulated as a result of father's illness. She felt that her children were entitled, as are all children, to a happy Christmas. If she bought the usual gifts and dinner for them, however, she couldn't possibly pay her tithing. If she paid her full tithing her children could have no Christmas. It was a difficult decision, but she finally decided that she must pay her tithing before she gave it further thought, as the desire of doing something for her children might tempt her too greatly. Hurriedly, she put on her wraps and went to the Bishop, where she paid her tithing in full.
