Gifts of Love

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above…

James 1:17a

I think part of the reason I love Christmas so much is the opportunity to give gifts to those I love.  This year I decided to give gifts in “sets.”  All three of my daughters plus one friend and one boyfriend received winter scarves, a favorite book, and a small gift card to their favorite store.  In addition, each daughter received a large “picture”:  the oldest and youngest were given their college diplomas appropriately framed, and my middle daughter received a framed portrait drawn by a Central Park street artist when she was a teenager.  Knowing that those three gifts would be a complete surprise was half the fun of giving them. 

Beginning in September, I went through all the endless boxes of pictures of the girls – photographed individually, together, and as a full family – and chose 800 of them that I felt were the best of the lot.  I had three Groupons for a California company—Scan Digital, and shipped them the pictures mid-November.  Just in time for Christmas, I received back cd’s of the photographs – one for each child, their father, and me.  Again, the surprise of the gift was a huge portion of the joy of giving.

I am quite positive that the last possible thing on Mary and Joseph’s minds was the thought of them receiving gifts at the birth of their son: housed in the squalor of an animal pen, giving birth in the rank dankness of mud and straw, bundling the baby in strips of cloth and laying Him in a feeding trough.  The arrival of the shepherds would not have been a huge surprise – they were common people like themselves, roused from their duties by shimmering angels.  After living in the town of Bethlehem for almost two years, this couple would not have dreamed of having visitors – especially not the likes of royal magi from the East.  The gifts, however unexpected, were needed and greatly appreciated by the parents of the Messiah.  In the coming days, when their flight to Egypt became an urgent necessity, Mary and Joseph had the means to make that journey possible and immediate.