Christmas is not receiving, but giving*

It was Christmas morning many years ago. I was a little boy, and times were good in Birmingham. The steel mills were going strong, so “Santa” had been able to afford to bring to my brother Jeff and to me quite a few nice toys, including a brand new tricycle! After we had opened our gifts, the living room was full of new toys and boxes and clothes and wrapping paper. I was elated over all the great stuff that we got. It was a joyful time for the family. I guess that I was about six.

Suddenly (and I remember this well) I turned to see my father and mother smiling and enjoying this time with us, and it occurred to me that Santa Claus had not brought them anything! I wondered to my dad, “How can you be so happy when you didn’t get any presents?” And he said something that just blew me away. “I’m just happy to see YOU get the things you wanted. I didn’t want anything, I just wanted for you and Jeff to have what y’all got. That’s what makes me happy!”

I remember thinking that it was the craziest thing I had ever heard anybody say. We didn’t use these words back then, but now I can say “it just didn’t compute!” How could he possibly be happy when my brother and I got all the presents, and he got nothing? How totally weird!

Fast-forward more than thirty years to the bitterly cold Christmas eve of 1983. My wife and I, along with our little girl and our little boy, were living in Atlanta and were headed to Birmingham to get together with family. My dad had just died just two weeks before. My mother and all my younger brothers and their families were all waiting for us in Alabama. It had already turned dark when we started out on the trip from Atlanta, and the temperature had dropped to five degrees. I was driving one of the worst automobiles to ever come out of Detroit - a 1978 Oldsmobile DIESEL sedan! As we travelled that night, the infamous motor on this infamous car started freezing up even as we drove.

Fifty miles west of Atlanta, several miles from the nearest freeway exit, there in the cold dark night, the diesel engine blew up. A loud “boom”, a huge cloud of smoke, and I knew it would never run again. Standing there in the dark, I stuck my thumb out as the cars and trucks flew by. I looked over at my family. They were shivvering in the cold, crying aloud, trying not to panic. Suddenly I realized that they would not last long out here in five-degree weather. “Dear God, I am scared and I don’t know what to do!” I turned on the headlights of my destroyed car, and called for my wife and children to stand with me beside the highway, with the lights shining on us.

I knew that the battery would soon die in the Oldsmobile, but until it did, we had a little time for all of us to be seen huddling together, hoping to wave somebody down. I prayed for it to be a kind person, knowing that we were at the mercy of whoever might be coming down the highway on this extremely cold night in this remote area. Of course we had no other choice but to stand there and wait.

Almost immediately, two cars pulled over. I soon realized that the two drivers were husband and wife, and they had their children with them and were headed home with one car following the other! Some of us got in his car and the rest of us got in hers. The heater on the car felt so good and warm. Equally warming was the song on the radio, “Christmas in Dixie”, by the country group “Alabama”. As the song finished, they began to express their joy of Christmas, and the great privilege that God had given them to be able to find somebody they could help on the night before Christmas! These people whom we had never met before were so thrilled to have the opportunity to do something special for someone! They took us to their home nearby, and gave us food and started a fire in the fireplace.They had a party to go to, but they left us in their nice house, and my family watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” on their television.

When the family got back from their party they let us spend the night in their house. While we were sleeping they arranged for my family’s transportation to Birmingham and for the towing of my car that had been left by the side of the road.

Early the next morning, on Christmas day, we headed on in to join my family in Birmingham. Of course we tried to express our gratitude and thanks to this wonderful family who had no doubt actually saved not only our Christmas, but our lives! But they kept saying, “No, no! We want to thank YOU for letting us help you! Thank you for being there- YOU have made this the best Christmas we ever had!” Of course their attitude just “blew me away!”

Many years have passed since then. Many Christmas celebrations have come and gone. I still don’t understand all the amazing things that happened on that very first Christmas, when a special baby was born that many of us believe was truly the Son of God. But I am beginning to understand what my daddy meant on that Christmas when I was just a little boy, and what that wonderful couple in West Georgia meant back in 1983. It isn’t so hard to compute any more. I think I get it now.

Merry Christmas, everyone!