A Christmas Story

It's the season of giving, which sometimes makes it difficult for those of us with the adult mindset to grasp. What do I buy? I hate shopping! I can't find the right color. Everything costs so much! Would it be too tacky to just get a gift card? I don't have time.... and there are a million and one reasons, I know of, that would keep me away from the store this time of year.

For a little child, it can be so much more exciting, especially when the gift they make comes from the labor of their own hands. I walked into the middle room at school one day to pick up some math papers to correct, while the teacher was explaining something about the parent gifts the students were making. One of my children is a student in that class and I guessed that my timing wasn't the best, so I grabbed the papers and hurried on out. However, all of  it reminded me of a story from a few years ago when our youngest son constructed his first Kindergarten Christmas gift...

He came running to the car, carrying a little foil gift bag and was so very excited! "Here is your present Mom! I made it myself!"
"Well, I can't wait until Christmas so I can open it!" I told him. 
"I dropped it though, so it might be broken....," replied a pint size little boy, burdened with a backpack, winter boots and his little foil bag. I wasn't quite sure what to say, so I simply left it and when we got home we put it under the tree and I gave him a big hug.

Over the next several days I pondered what to do with the little gift. I didn't want to disappoint the little man who was so excited about giving us his gift. Christmas wasn't a time to teach lessons about being careful and not running with fragile things and all that... at least in my mind a lecture didn't seem appropriate at the time. And I didn't know for sure that it was even broken.

A couple nights before Christmas Eve, I got to the point where it was bothering me so much I knew what I had to do. I climbed out of bed in the middle of the night, and I found the little bag under the tree. I took it over to the table and very carefully lifted the contents out. Inside, there was a little paper clay vase, molded around a plastic drinking cup and it was worse than I feared, it was indeed, very broken. I sighed...

I don't have a surgeons hands, and I'm no miracle worker, but I went to the drawer and got out a bottle of Elmer's glue and went to work. Piece by piece I was able to see how it all fit together and I glued, and fitted. Then I put rubber bands in place to hold it together and very gently I put it back into the bag and put it under the tree. Trying not to seem mocking, I said a little prayer that the repair might take, for the sake of my little boy. The next night I went sneakily to the tree again and got out the little bag to remove the gift again. Carefully, I removed the rubber bands, and behold, the little vase, though cracked and patched, stood on it's own.

Christmas came and as the gift came to me and my husband to open, Tim handed it to me with a wink for I had told him the story of what I had done. I opened the little foil bag (I almost can't write this without a tear shed) as my apprehensive little boy looked on. I carefully lifted the little vase out of the bag all in one piece as his eyes got as big as saucers. "It's not broken!", he cried.

For me, this was one of the best gifts. Not the little vase itself, but the smile, the joy, a gift of love, a memorable gift that can never rust or tarnish, that a thief can not steal, that can remain in a heart for ever and always. I'll always be thankful for that moment.

Before the foundation of the world, God purposed to send Jesus Christ into the world to pay the ransom price for broken, sinful mankind. Lives so badly shattered that they would seem beyond repair, God bound their wounds and healed them, so that they could have new life, new meaning, new purpose. Because of this, we can have joy unspeakable, a joy that can remain in our hearts forever and always. Christ is the gift that can never be taken from us. We can trust this above all else and have true comfort in nothing else. This is hope, this is love, this is Christmas.

The Christmas Vase