My son Richard suggested this week that we hide his younger brother’s Christmas presents and first give him several beautifully-wrapped, empty boxes. He would then unwrap gift after gift and find nothing. A variation on the box inside a box inside a box prank. Wouldn’t that be a grand joke?
No. It wouldn’t. Why would he think of such a thing?
Well, Richard remembered when we once gave him the stocking filled with coal. His real stocking was hidden away, emerging later. That year Richard, the King of Tease, earned a coal-filled replica because he was merciless in teasing others. It seemed fitting somehow.
For his more serious-minded little brother, though, to unwrap and unwrap and find nothing? That would be cruel.
But what if he opened package after package, and then found – buried deep in shredded paper – a check for $5,000? (Note from Mom: This will not happen.)
I know my son. After opening and looking over one or two empty boxes, he would give up. I would, too. You get the joke, and it’s not funny.
But real Christmas is worth digging. It’s worth the trouble and worth the seeking, even if it starts out with an empty box or two.
Suppose you buy a plastic Rudolph, but its nose doesn’t shine as brightly as it should. You look at the package. Aha! It isn’t a real Rudolph, but a wanna-be, off-brand Rudolph.
But even if it were a real Rudolph, it would still be fake; we know Rudolph was a late addition to the Christmas story. You won’t find him among Clement Moore’s Comets and Vixens. And even if he were among them he would still be a fake, since The Night Before Christmas is also a later tack-on to the St. Nicholas legend.
And though there was a real 4th century Nicholas, bishop of Myra, he didn’t have a whole lot to do with the real Christmas story, the story of Christ’s birth. A box inside a box inside a box. Is there a real present here somewhere?
One year my parents broke down and bought an artificial tree. I was as depressed as Charlie Brown. I mentioned in passing to my boyfriend of 6 weeks that I missed the smell of real evergreen needles. A week later, he brought a small, potted live tree -- a real and living Linus-style tree, just for me to keep in my room.
I later planted the tree and I kept my boyfriend (for about 32 years now). When he gave me the tree he also gave me something else – a small, used, dog-eared, Gideon’s New Testament that had belonged to someone else before he had it. Uh, thanks.
I’d never read a Bible before and I wasn’t exactly thrilled, but because he cared about the tree I knew I should care about this other gift.
Inside was real Christmas, but it took about a year of unwrapping to figure that out.
A year later, I stared out the window at glistening stars in the cold, empty night, knowing for the first time that of all the fairy tales with happy endings, this one was true. The real Christmas story was true.
I had to tear open chapters, dig through pages, think a lot and consider things I would have dismissed earlier without a thought. I had to ask questions, learn to pray, begin to listen to voices of people I once smirked at. I had to unwrap a very small, tightly-taped package called faith and rip to shreds the outer paper of smug superiority and polite condescension. More than once I thought of giving up and laying aside the boxes.
But there, in the last box was not $5,000, but a diamond – the star of Bethlehem. There it was again, in the sky outside my window, 5,000 times over in the night.
When you see a 20-foot inflatable Frosty, or a forest of cardboard candy canes in your neighbor’s yard, or a table-top, rotating, jewel-bedecked, Elvis Christmas tree complete with blue-suede shoes, lights and Blue Christmas tune, it doesn’t mean that Christmas has deserted you, or that it isn’t real. It just means you have a few more layers to rip through.
No. It wouldn’t. Why would he think of such a thing?
Well, Richard remembered when we once gave him the stocking filled with coal. His real stocking was hidden away, emerging later. That year Richard, the King of Tease, earned a coal-filled replica because he was merciless in teasing others. It seemed fitting somehow.
For his more serious-minded little brother, though, to unwrap and unwrap and find nothing? That would be cruel.
But what if he opened package after package, and then found – buried deep in shredded paper – a check for $5,000? (Note from Mom: This will not happen.)
I know my son. After opening and looking over one or two empty boxes, he would give up. I would, too. You get the joke, and it’s not funny.
But real Christmas is worth digging. It’s worth the trouble and worth the seeking, even if it starts out with an empty box or two.
Suppose you buy a plastic Rudolph, but its nose doesn’t shine as brightly as it should. You look at the package. Aha! It isn’t a real Rudolph, but a wanna-be, off-brand Rudolph.
But even if it were a real Rudolph, it would still be fake; we know Rudolph was a late addition to the Christmas story. You won’t find him among Clement Moore’s Comets and Vixens. And even if he were among them he would still be a fake, since The Night Before Christmas is also a later tack-on to the St. Nicholas legend.
And though there was a real 4th century Nicholas, bishop of Myra, he didn’t have a whole lot to do with the real Christmas story, the story of Christ’s birth. A box inside a box inside a box. Is there a real present here somewhere?
One year my parents broke down and bought an artificial tree. I was as depressed as Charlie Brown. I mentioned in passing to my boyfriend of 6 weeks that I missed the smell of real evergreen needles. A week later, he brought a small, potted live tree -- a real and living Linus-style tree, just for me to keep in my room.
I later planted the tree and I kept my boyfriend (for about 32 years now). When he gave me the tree he also gave me something else – a small, used, dog-eared, Gideon’s New Testament that had belonged to someone else before he had it. Uh, thanks.
I’d never read a Bible before and I wasn’t exactly thrilled, but because he cared about the tree I knew I should care about this other gift.
Inside was real Christmas, but it took about a year of unwrapping to figure that out.
A year later, I stared out the window at glistening stars in the cold, empty night, knowing for the first time that of all the fairy tales with happy endings, this one was true. The real Christmas story was true.
I had to tear open chapters, dig through pages, think a lot and consider things I would have dismissed earlier without a thought. I had to ask questions, learn to pray, begin to listen to voices of people I once smirked at. I had to unwrap a very small, tightly-taped package called faith and rip to shreds the outer paper of smug superiority and polite condescension. More than once I thought of giving up and laying aside the boxes.
But there, in the last box was not $5,000, but a diamond – the star of Bethlehem. There it was again, in the sky outside my window, 5,000 times over in the night.
When you see a 20-foot inflatable Frosty, or a forest of cardboard candy canes in your neighbor’s yard, or a table-top, rotating, jewel-bedecked, Elvis Christmas tree complete with blue-suede shoes, lights and Blue Christmas tune, it doesn’t mean that Christmas has deserted you, or that it isn’t real. It just means you have a few more layers to rip through.
Donna Marmorstein Dec. 2006 All Rights Reserved
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