There are several stories around this time of year that I love to hear every season, or those stories that I've heard for the first time this year. Here are a few of them. If you have others you'd like to share, contact me.
Keeping Baby Warm
by Lynda H. Laughlin
"It was an inexpensive dime-store Nativity set, and he was only three years old. His back was toward me, but I could see that his chubby little hands were busily working on something at the old table.
"'What are you doing?' I asked him impatiently, annoyed at him for touching the decorations after he had been told not to.
"As I started toward the scene of his latest mischief, he turned toward me with wide blue yes filling and a single tear starting down his cherubic cheek. Then I saw it, a carefully folded tissue had been tenderly placed over the small ceramic infant.
"'Baby Jesus was cold, Mommy,' he whispered.
"Ten years have passed, and the tiny Nativity has been replaced by a much larger one. But this year, as every year, I found a carefully folded tissue covering the baby Jesus. I think I know who did it, and I hope he never stops."
Davey and the First Christmas
by Beth Vardom
Let's pretend there was a boy, and Davey was his name,
Whose family lived in Bethlehem when Christmastime first came.
Davey had a special pet–a donkey small and gray,
And what the two of them did best was getting in the way!
Davey named the donkey Tim. He never rode him though.
Either Tim was built too high or Davey was too low!
Davey's father had an inn where people came to stay;
and lots and lots and lots of them were coming there one day.
His father was as busy as six or seven bees!
So Davey said, "I want to help, can't I do something, please?
Tim would like to help you, too. Find a job for us to do!"
"Listen, son" his father said, "Last week you broke three jugs.
You scared my two best customers with your pet lightening bugs!
You tracked in mud on my clean floor, you tripped and dropped the bread.
And though I loved the fish you caught–why leave them on my bed?
I've put up with your helpfulness as long as I am able.
So do me one big favor now, get out–and clean the stables!"
Davey sadly went and stood beside the stable door.
It hardly seemed that anyone could clean that dirty floor.
He and Tim both felt so bad they started in to cry–
But then (thought Davey), "Yes, we can! Well, anyhow–let's try.
First, let's chase those chickens out. That's what we've got to do."
So Tim began to flap his ears while Davey shouted, "Shooooo!"
The chickens clucked and flew and ducked, they fluttered wild and scary,
Until their feathers filled the air like snow in January.
Yes, Davey chased those chickens out, He and Tim together.
But now he had to get a sack and pick up every feather!
You should have seen how hard they worked! They stacked up all the wheat,
They straightened up the harnesses till they were nice and neat.
They fought with spiders bravely till they chased out every bug.
And since we must admit the truth–they broke another jug!
The very biggest job of all was stacking up the hay.
Davey climbed up to the loft and put it all away.
"Look, Tim. You see how high it is? I'll make just one more trip."
Then clear up by the stable roof his feet began to slip!
Down came the hay and Davey, too. The stable looked so queer–
All you could see was piles of hay–one sandal, and one earl.
Slowly they came out on top, and Davey didn't whine,
Though hay stuck out all over him just like a porcupine!
He put the hay all back again and stacked it up with care–
But left one armload down below to fill the manger there.
So Davey's work was done at last, and when it all looked neat
He picked some flowers to trim the barn, and some from Tim to eat.
"I hope it's clean enough," he thought. "At least I did my best."
And feeling very, very tired, he curled up for a rest...
Who woke up Dave from his sleep? Just guess them if you can.
Mary was the woman's name, Joseph was the man.
Mary said, "Oh Joseph, look! This is a lovely place!"
Then, seeing Davey there, she said, with such a shining face,
"Your father's inn had no more rooms, tonight we're staying here.
So tell me now, are you the boy who cleaned the stable, dear
And did your donkey help you work? We want to thank him, too."
Though Davey was still half asleep, his hear was glad clear through.
So that is how a little boy, two thousand years ago,
Stayed on to hear the angels sing, and see the Star aglow.
As soon as Baby Jesus came to use the manger bed,
Then Davey's sack of feathers made a pillow for His head.
No one told Davey anymore that he was in the way.
His work had helped get ready for the world's first Christmas Day!
Is There a Santa Claus?
by Francis P. Church
an editorial from The New York Sun
September 21, 1897
Dear Editor:
I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun it's so."
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
115 West Ninety-Fifth Street
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
The Gift of Love
by Thomas S. Monson
When I was a very young bishop, in 1950, there was a tap at my door and a good German brother from Ogden, Utah, announced himself as Karl Guertler.
He said, "Are you Bishop Monson?"
I answered in the affirmative.
He said, "My brother and his wife and their family are coming from Germany. They are going to live in your ward. Will you come with me to see the apartment we have rented for them?" On the way to that apartment, he told me he had not seen his brother for something like 30 years. Yet all through the holocaust of World War II, his brother, Hans Guertler, had been faithful to the Church–an officer in the Hamburg branch.
I looked at that apartment. It was cold; it was dreary; the paint was peeling from the walls; the cupboards were bare. What an uninviting home for the Christmas season of the year! I worried about it and I prayed about it, and then in our ward welfare committee meeting, we did something about it.
The group leader of the high priests said, "I am an electrician. Let's put good appliances in that apartment."
The group leader of the seventies said, "I am in the floor covering business. Let's install new floor coverings."
The elders quorum president said, "I am a painter. Let's paint that apartment."
The Relief Society representative spoke up, "Did you say those cupboards were bare?" (They were not bare long, with the Relief Society in action.)
Then the young people, represented through the Aaronic Priesthood general secretary said, "Let's put a Christmas tree in the home and let's go among our young people and gather gifts to place under the tree."
You should have seen that Christmas scene, when the Guertler family arrived from Germany in clothing which was tattered and with faces which were drawn by the rigors of war and deprivation! As they went into their apartment they saw what had been in actual fact a transformation–a beautiful home. We spontaneously began singing, "Silent Night! Holy Night! All is calm; all is bright." We sang in English; they sang in German. At the conclusion of that hymn, Hans Guertler threw his arms around my neck buried his face in my shoulder, and repeated over and over again those words which I shall never forget: "Mein brudder, mein brudder, mein brudder".
As we walked down the stairs that night, all of us who had participated in making Christmas come alive in the lives of this German family, we reflected upon the words of the Master:
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (Matthew 25:40)
The Man Who Missed Christmas
by J. Edgar Park
It was Christmas Eve; and, as usual, George Mason was the last to leave the office. He walked over to massive safe, spun the dials, sung the heavy door open. Making sure the door would not close behind him, he stepped inside.
A square of white cardboard was taped was taped just above the topmost row of strongboxes. On the card a few words were written. George Mason stared at those words, remembering...
Exactly one year ago he had entered this self-same vault. And then, behind his back, slowly, noiselessly, the door swung shut. He was trapped–entombed in the sudden and terrifying dark.
He hurled himself at the unyielding foor, his hoarse cry sounding like an explosion. Through his mind flashed all the stories he had heard of men found suffocated in time vaults. Not time controlled this mechanism; the safe would remain locked until it was opened from the outside. Tomorrow morning.
Then realization hit me. No one would come tomorrow–tomorrow was Christmas.
Once more he flung himself at the door, shouting wildly, until he sank on his knees, exhausted. Silence came, high-pitched, singing silence that seemed deafening. More than thirty-six hours would pass before anyone came– thirty-six hours in a steel box three feet wide, eight feet long, seven feet high. Would the oxygen last? Perspiring and breathing heavily, he felt his way around the floor. Then, in the far right-hand corner, just above the floor, he found a small, circular opening. Quickly, he thrust his finger into it and felt, faint but unmistakable, a cool current of air.
The tension release was so sudden that he burst into tears. But at last he sat up. Surely he would not have to stay strapped for the full thirty-six hours. Somebody would miss him. But who? He was unmarried and alone. The maid who cleaned his apartment was just a servant; he had always treated her as such. He had been invited to spend Christmas Eve with his brother's family; but children got on his nerves and expected presents.
A friend had asked him to go to a home for elderly people on Christmas Day and play the piano–George Mason was a good musician. But he had made some excuse or other; he had intended to sit at home, listening to some new recordings he was giving himself.
George Mason dug his nails into the palms of his hands until the pain balanced the misery in his mind. Nobody would come and let him out, nobody, nobody, nobody...
Miserably the whole of Christmas Day went by, and the succeeding night.
On the morning after Christmas the head clerk came into the office at the usual time, open the safe, then went on into his private office.
No one saw George Mason stagger out into the corridor, run to the water cooler, and drink great gulps of water. No one paid any attention to him as he left and took a taxi home.
Then he shaved, changed his wrinkled clothes, ate breakfast and returned to his office where his employees greeted him casually.
That day he met several acquaintances and talked to his own brother. Grimly, the truth closed in on George Mason. He had vanished from human society during the great festival of brotherhood; no one had missed him at all.
Reluctantly, George Mason began to think about the true meaning of Christmas. Was it possible that he had been blind all these years with selfishness, indifference, pride? Was not giving, after all, the essence of Christmas because it marked the time God gave His son to the world?
All through the year that followed, with little hesitant deeds of kindness with small, unnoticed acts of unselfishness, George Mason tried to prepare himself...
Now, once more, it was Christmas Eve.
Slowly he backed out of the safe, closed it. He touched its grim steel face lightly, almost affectionately, and left the office.
There he goes now in his black overcoat and hat, the same George Mason as a year ago. Or is it? He walks a few blocks, then flags a taxi, anxious not to be late. His nephews are expecting him to help them trim the tree. Afterwards, he is taking his brother and his sister-in-law to a Christmas play. Why is he so happy? Why does this jostling against other, laden as he is with bundles, exhilarate and delight him?
Perhaps the card has something to do with it, the card he taped inside his office space last New Year's Day. On the card is written, in George Mason's own hand:
"To love people, to be indispensable somewhere, that is the purpose of life. That is the secret of happiness."
Trouble at the Inn
by Dina Donahue
For many years now, whenever Christmas pageants are talked about in certain little town in the Mid-west, someone is sure to mention the name of Wallace Purling. Wally's performance in one annual production of the nativity play has slipped into the realm of legend. But the old-timers who were in the audience that night never tire of recalling exactly what happened.
Wally was nine that year in the second grade, though he should have been in the fourth. Most people in town knew that he had difficultly in keeping up. He was big and clumsy, slow in movement and mind. Still, Wally was well liked by the other children in his class, all of whom were smaller than he, though the boys had trouble hiding their irritation when Wally would ask to play ball with them, or any game, for that matter, in which winning was important.
Most often they'd find a way to keep him out, but Wally would hang around anyway–not sulking, just hoping. He was always a helpful boy, a willing and smiling one, and the natural protector of the underdog. Sometimes, if the older boys chased the younger ones away, it would always be Wally who'd say, "Can't they stay? They're no bother."
Wally fancied the idea of being a shepherd with a flute in the Christmas pageant that year, but the play's director, Miss Lumbard, assigned him to a more important role. After all, she reasoned, the Innkeeper did not have too many lines and Wally's size would make his refusal of lodging to Joseph more forceful.
And so it happened that the usual large, partisan audience gathered for the town's yearly extravaganza breads, crowns, halos and a whole stageful of squeaky voices. No one on stage or off was more caught up in the magic of the night than Wallace Purling. They said later that he stood in the wings and watched the performance with such fascination that from time to time Miss Lumbard had to make sure he didn't wander on stage before his cue.
Then the time came when Joseph appeared, slowly, tenderly guiding Mary to the door of the inn. Joseph knocked hard on the wooden door set into the painted backdrop. Wally the innkeeper was there, waiting.
"What do you want?" Wally said, swinging the door open with a brusque gesture.
"We seek lodging."
"Seek it elsewhere." Wally looked straight ahead but spoke vigorously. "The inn is filled."
"Sir, we have asked everywhere in vain. We have traveled far and are very weary."
"There is no room in this inn for you." Wally look properly stern.
"Please, good innkeeper, this is my wife, Mary. She is heavy with child and needs a place to rest. Surely you must have some small corner for her. She is so tired."
Now, for the first time, the Innkeeper relaxed his still stance and looked down at Mary. With that, there was a long pause, long enough to make the audience a bit tense with embarrassment.
"No! Begone!" the prompter whispered from the wings.
"No!" Wally repeated automatically. "Begone!"
Joseph sadly placed his arm around Mary and Mary laid her head upon her husband's shoulder and the two of them started to move away. The Innkeeper did not return inside his inn, however. Wally stood there in the doorway, watching the forlorn couple. His mouth was open, his brown creased with concern, his eyes filling unmistakably with tears.
And suddenly this Christmas pageant became different from all the others.
"Don't go, Joseph," Wally cried out. "Bring Mary back." And Wallace Purling's face grew into a bright smile. "You can have my room."
Some people in town thought that the pageant had been ruined. Yet there were others–many, many others–who considered it the most Christmas of all Christmas pageants they had ever seen.
