Sharing Christmas, page 6
I was so happy to have a surprise for my friends. I had no idea that they would also have a surprise for me. I had not expected any presents; having come through the war alive was the greatest gift.
But on Christmas Eve I received a tray decorated with small pine boughs and loaded with treasures. Of all the Christmas gifts I have received since then, in over forty years, the simple presents on that tray moved me the most: a pencil stub, a sheet of used carbon paper, half a scratch pad, and a book from Joachim's library. The memory of that Christmas Eve still fills me with the joy that comes from caring and sharing. Each one of us shared our last precious possessions. Because of that, the Christmas of 1945 is the one I remember best.
THE YEAR CHRISTMAS CAME TO ME
Sandra Drake
Just after I turned twenty-one, I was re-admitted to the hospital for more intravenous antibiotic treatment of an infection that had been plaguing me for five years. I didn't really mind, however, because Christmas was a month away. My doctors would have four weeks to clear the infection. Having spent three of the previous four Christmas seasons in the hospital, I felt nothing was as important as just being home with my parents for the holidays.
Unfortunately, the weeks passed by quickly with little improvement in my condition. On Friday, December 19, my doctors announced that I wouldn't be spending Christmas at home after all. My hope for a Christmas filled with warmth and love seemed to disappear.
At the same time, however, a friend of mine from my hometown of Logan, Utah, was planning an excursion with some youth from her stake to Salt Lake City, where I was hospitalized. Their final destination was to be Temple Square, with its grounds aglow in lights and holiday decorations. Thinking that a detour in their trip might add joy to my Christmas, Rae Louise contacted the nurses who cared for me at the university hospital.
On the Saturday before Christmas, a large group of young women squeezed into my room at the hospital. Christmas carols rang out and changed my frown to a smile. Little did these youth know that their visit was only the beginning of my most inspiring and memorable Christmas ever.
For their concluding number, the youth sang “I Am a Child of God.” Tears rolled down my cheeks as I remembered that I, too, was a child of God, that he loved me and would take care of me. Suddenly, just knowing this fact made me feel better about staying in the hospital at Christmas. I wouldn't be home in Logan, but I would be loved.
For family home evening the following Monday night, my sister (who was teaching school in Salt Lake City) and her roommates kidnapped me—with my doctor's permission, of course. For two hours we cruised along the residential streets of the city, enjoying the lights strung from the many rooftops and the nativity scenes on numerous lawns. Though it banged continually against the back window, my IV bottle survived the evening.
Tuesday at noon, my lunch tray failed to arrive on schedule. I didn't think too much about it until fifteen minutes later, when the women from my doctor's clinic walked in with pizza and garlic bread—the works. After four weeks of hospital food, that pizza taste d good.
Wednesday was Christmas Eve. Though many people had already done much to make my Christmas in the hospital special, I still awoke feeling discouraged. I was going to miss the traditional family Christmas that I loved.
At six o'clock that night, however, my family walked in carrying a ham dinner with all the trimmings. They had brought the dinner eighty miles from home, and I enjoyed it as much as I would have in Logan. While I slept later that night, the nurses brought in my stocking and attached it to my IV pole. It was filled with gifts and goodies, and as always, it had the traditional orange in the toe. Mom and Dad hadn't forgotten anything!
On Christmas morning my family arrived early to open packages and spend the entire day at my bedside. It couldn't have been much fun for them, but I have never heard any complaints about that Christmas. Each of us learned that it is not the glamour and glitter or the bows and packages that are important. If love is shared, Christmas can be celebrated almost anywhere.
A CHRISTMAS HYMN
Christina Georgina Rossetti
Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and Angels gave the sign.
* * *
Love shall be our token,
Love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.
NO GIFTS?
Milton L. Weilenmann
From the vantage point of one's middle years it is exciting and stimulating to look back at the Mount Everests in our life— the high points of our existence—the lesson-makers of our mortality.
In 1960 our family experienced one of these high points. During the month of October I was called by President David O. McKay to preside over the Alaskan-Canadian Mission. It was newly organized, and no mission home existed. I was asked to find a suitable home, and prayerful search of the great city of Vancouver, British Columbia, led me to a stately mansion on Connaught Drive. Built by a family prominent in the lumber and fishing industries in Canada, it was now unoccupied and darkened. Constructed along the lines of a great English manor house, the home had a ballroom that had witnessed receptions for two presidents of the United States and many prime ministers of Canada. Royalty had entered through its massive oak front door.
Yes, the family who owned it would sell it to the Church, but with one stipulation—it could not be occupied by its new owners until Christmas Eve, because on the 23rd of December, 1960, the family who had built the home and loved it wanted to come back to hold one final great dance in its ballroom. It would glitter once more for its original owners. We could have it on Christmas Eve, after the great men of Vancouver and their ladies had bade the home farewell.
Such a plan for purchase was agreeable to the Church, and on the night of the day before Christmas Eve the great ball was held. Five massive Christmas trees were placed in the home.
On the day before Christmas we moved in—my wife, six children, and I. Save for those five trees, a great dining table with eighteen chairs in the dining room, and four beds in the bedrooms, the house was vacant. Our furniture, together with the gifts we had purchased for each other—all the usual things one has for the celebration of Christmas—were on a moving van somewhere between Salt Lake City and Vancouver. Suddenly we realized that even though the trees filled the house with the smell of pine, and holly red with berries grew profusely outside the front door, on the morrow no presents would be found under any of the resplendent Christmas trees. Were we to be forgotten on that Christmas Day?
When we awoke Christmas morning there really were no pres ents under the trees. We looked around and there were indeed no gifts. But that day we learned a lesson—and a great truth dawned. We conquered another Mount Everest and witnessed another high point in our lives. No gifts—yet we shared the greatest gift of all, and more than any one of us could open, hold, have, or enjoy in a single day. And what was it? It was ourselves, and the joy of being together, and sharing the wondrous story of Jesus together. We left the house and skipped together in a beautiful park, and looked up to a lazy sun that filtered through majestic pines. We even took our shoes off and dipped our feet in the Straits of Georgia, whose chill had been tempered by the warming Japanese current.
In the afternoon when the missionaries and Saints came, we sliced a big ham and enjoyed good food with our new friends. Afterwards, we sang again, and talked again, and prayed again!
Never in its most glittering days, never even in the presence of a prime minister, had that great old home known such joy or happiness. Never in its fifty or more years had the house seen such a marvelous Christmas ... nor had we! And it was done without gifts, with nothing but each other, our friends, and the missionaries—and Jesus himself. For his spirit trulyfilled that house on that Christmas Day ... which now seems so long ago!
JOSEPH
Richard Tice
The first came after pain, after seeming
faithlessness. Yet unwilling to censure,
Joseph sought a course as honorable—
and merciful—as law allowed. Troubled
in spirit, he lay down, but sleep brought
thoughts of sorrow. When the angel spoke,
Joseph heard in a dream such things he never
could have known: God was surely with us:
and Mary was true, woman of promise
to him, and yet to all of Israel. Joseph
did not wait. Rising from his bed, he left
while it was yet dark to take Mary to wife.
A dreamer he was. The second came
after strangers gave the child gifts like those
to Solomon from Sheba, before blood turned Beth-lehem
to a house of weeping.
The angel—again to Joseph—warned him.
Again rising while it was yet dark, he fled
with Mary and the child of promise
to Egypt. There they heard the rumor
of lamentation, but the child was safe.
The third came when the tyrant died. At night,
God called his son from Egypt, through Joseph.
The angel spoke in a dream, “They are dead
who sought his life.” Arising—without delay?—
he took the child and mother to the land
of promise. In Egypt, ancient Joseph
knew that promise too. He would not live
to see that day, but Israel carried his bones
homeward. This Joseph, though, went living.
But the murderous son ruled in Judea.
Though the home in Beth-lehem beckoned,
it could not promise safety. The fourth dream
came as a warning from God, and they turned
aside to Galilee, back to Nazareth,
not city of the king, nor holy city,
but home of Emmanuel. Like his namesake,
Joseph was the new patriarch of dreams,
hearer of angels, who saw servitude
and lordship, years lean then rich, salvation—
these things Joseph, protector of Israel,
dreamed.
CHRISTMAS MEMORIES
Joseph Fielding McConkie
Ah, that memories and feelings could be hung on a Christmas tree like ornaments and tinsel! How marvelous it would be if instead of lacing the branches of our Christmas trees with colored lights we could make them sparkle with the glow of the special lessons that the Christmas season teaches so well. Three of our nine children have been born during Christmas week. Near countless times we have heard well-meaning people say, “Oh, what an awful time to have a baby!”
How strange—too busy commemorating the birth of Christ to have a child of our own? Yet, no one has ever said to us, “Oh, what a wonderful time to have a child!” My mind returns to bitter winter days in England. As missionaries we called on hundreds of homes in December, asking if we could share a brief message about the Savior with them. Again and again we heard the words, “I'm sorry, we're getting ready for Christmas.”
Perhaps the birth of our children during the holiday season has kept us from getting too busy, and it has certainly enriched the Christmas tradition in our family. The cast of characters in our traditional portrayal of the nativity story has often included a real mother-to-be, one “heavy with child,” and in other years a precious newborn to lay in our own makeshift manger.
In large measure our family traditions are a reenactment of boyhood memories—getting up Christmas morning, dressing, making our beds, having something to eat (in the vain hope that we wouldn't stuff ourselves with Christmas candy), lining up according to age (there were eight of us), waiting for Dad to go into the living room to turn on the Christmas lights and see if Santa had really come, and then hearing his manifestation of surprise that Santa had indeed been there.
About mid-morning, Granddaddy Smith and Aunt Jessy would arrive. Everyone was to be hugged and kissed—by the man others thought to be the stern apostle—and then he would give each of us a new silver dollar.
After their visit, we were all loaded in the car so we could visit our McConkie grandparents. The last of those visits was particularly memorable. Granddaddy McConkie had been ill for some time. At the conclusion of our visit, Granddaddy said he had something very important to tell us. We all gathered around, and even the young ones were quiet.
I don't remember all he said that day, but some of his words I will never forget. “I am about to die,” he began. “I don't know yet what my assignment will be in the spirit world, but this much I do know: when I die I will not cease to love you; I will not cease to be concerned about you; I will not cease to pray for you; and I will not cease to labor in your behalf.” A few weeks later Oscar W. McConkie died. Things have happened in the family since that day that have evidenced Granddaddy has not forgotten his Christmas promise.
It was not many years ago that we shared our last Christmas with my own father, Elder Bruce R. McConkie. Since Dad was coming down to Provo on Christmas Day to speak to the missionaries at the Missionary Training Center, we were able to get him and Mother to join our family for Christmas dinner.
There was nothing that Dad loved to do more than take the scriptures and tell the story of the birth of Christ. He wanted to speak to the missionaries for a couple of hours but knew that his strength was very limited.
That was the last meeting I ever went to with him. None of us realized the seriousness of his situation. He spoke for an hour and then sat down. The missionaries sang, and special musical numbers were rendered while he rested. He then stood and spoke a second hour. We left immediately after the closing prayer. Dad wanted to shake hands with each of the missionaries, but he just didn't have the energy.
We returned to our home. Dad immediately lay down on the floor to rest. Cold, he asked if I had a sweater he could borrow. I went to my closet where I found a sweater he had given me for Christmas more than twenty years before. I had never worn it. The sleeves were too long. Why I had kept it all those years I don't know. I suppose I hoped that my arms would grow. I took the sweater to Dad and said, “Merry Christmas.” The fit was perfect. He laid back down and fell comfortably asleep while my wife and the girls completed the preparations for dinner.
Christmas dinners are always good in our home, but this was one especially so. As we ate, we took turns unwrapping treasured memories, laughing, and crying together. That evening when Dad left he kept that sweater. It was wrapped tightly around him. Dad never cared about gifts. No one could ever figure out what to give him. In recent years I had made it a practice at Christmas to present him with a manuscript I had written and ask him to review it for me. That seemed to please him more than a gift.
Still, there was something special in my being able to return that sweater to him. In some unspoken way it seemed to represent my desire to return to him all that was warm and good that I had received from him. Maybe returning things is what Christmas is all about.
For us, Christmas has represented life's cycles—we have witnessed birth, enjoyed family kinships, and had our final partings with loved ones. In it all we are learning that the best of Christmas is not just in giving, but in giving back the best of what has been given to us.
CHRISTMAS IN AMERICA
Anya Bateman
You mean you want all these things?” my mother asked me in Dutch as she surveyed the long list I was copying from the small catalog I'd found on our front porch.
“Yes! You should see these!” I was astounded such toys even existed. Of course, I wanted them. Who wouldn't?
I'd circled the items first but then in a selfish frenzy had begun listing them as well. I'd already used three sheets of the light brown paper Opa had retrieved from the trash bin at his work.
“Look at this page, Mama!” I eagerly flipped to my favorite page in the little catalog—the page on which I'd circled or double circled nearly every toy. It advertised a child's kitchen, complete with kitchen appliances much like those in the kitchen of the old house we rented, only in miniature. There were tiny pots and pans to use on the stove and dishes and utensils just the right size for the small white table with the matching chairs. The girl in the picture, who appeared to be about my age, was serving a tiny slice of cake to her delighted father. Dressed in a suit and tie, he looked a great deal like Dick, Jane, and Sally's father in the American reading book I brought home from school every night. He reminded me as well of the fathers in our ward who sat with their young families in church every Sunday.
My own father had not come with us to America. He had been killed in an automobile accident on the highway near Gouda as he traveled to his weekly architecture class. My mother and I packed the large wooden trunk he had built for our journey, and with just $50, we entered the New York harbor without him. Then we flew to “Zion,” where we would make our home. Almost immediately my mother made arrangements for us to be sealed to my father in the temple. Even though we couldn't be together in America, we would be together afterward.
To survive financially in Salt Lake City, my mother and I banded together with my grandmother and grandfather (Oma and Opa), my great-grandmother (Oma Boek), and my mother's younger brothers. Opa found a job as a night janitor at a machine shop several miles away, Oma was hired to help serve at the big dinner banquets at Hotel Utah, and Aart and Ben got paper routes. During the day and after school Oma and Oma Boek took turns tending me because it was my mother who was the right age and knew English well enough to land the family's only full-time day job. In the evenings and on Saturdays, she sat at the hand-cranked sewing machine we'd brought from Holland to sew suitable clothing to wear to what we called “the office.” For me, she sewed cotton school dresses, blouses, and skirts from the fabric she picked out during her lunch hour from the Yardstick budget remnant table. Even the crossing guard had commented on my nice clothes. “This dress cost only 75¢,” I'd once mustered the courage to brag.
