We do give the money we would spend on cards to charity - honest, we do - but again, that's an excuse, not a reason. Lots of other people with more stress, less time, and less money give more to charity AND write Christmas cards.
That's lousy, I know, especially because we enjoy getting cards from friends and family. And this year, there was one that I found to be particularly meaningful. So, now, in lieu of sending you a card, I'm sending you the letter SOMEONE ELSE wrote as his Christmas card. I hope that you find the letter as meaningful as I did, so that by the time you reach the end of it, you'll have forgiven my shortcomings.
A close friend of mine walked into my classroom and tentatively asked me to edit the letter he was sending this year. I offered only the tiniest edits, shared my enthusiasm, and asked him if I could share his essay with my friends. He said sure.
I've read many meaningful Christmas essays, but this one captures my feelings like few others. I hope you find in it what I did. It is by my close friend Tim Leet.
Merry Christmas, friends.
Stefan
It’s cold outside. Eight honest degrees and even colder with the wind. The snow on my unshoveled driveway crunches under my car tires, and the string of Christmas lights that came loose from my gutter in yesterday’s storm swing sloppily in the wind. Judge me neighbors, if you must, but fixing the lights and clearing the drive will have to wait. It’s too cold and crunchy outside.
Inside, it’s a different story. The walls are strong against the wind and every room is warm. Three feet to my right and through a double-paned window is the gusting, crunching cold. Yet, I sit and write this letter in a t-shirt. To my left I can find food behind every cabinet door in the kitchen, and the coffee in my mug is luxurious. It’s all some kind of miracle, isn’t it? What have I done to deserve such comforts? My daughters and wife sleep soundly upstairs, untouched by the cold and oblivious to the suburban embarrassment of my sloppy lights and unshoveled drive. I have replayed the film many times but find nothing in my life’s story that warrants these gifts.
A friend once told me that we cannot accept a gift that we could not give. I have pondered this nugget for years. When I look right and face the deadly cold through my window and then turn left and contemplate the abundance and warmth of my kitchen, I am humbled by the extravagant gift of my daily life. I can barely accept it. What Grace has placed me on this side of the window?
Christmas is a time of extravagance. We give gifts and sing old, familiar songs loudly. We decorate our homes beyond all good sense. We bake with real butter. Why all this excess at Christmas? Cynics will talk about economics and skeptics of how shared rituals bind societies together. Fine. Boring, but fine. I will cast my lot with the happy folks who embrace the extravagance of Christmas as the only sensible response to the extravagant gift of our lives.
You are entitled to your own thoughts concerning certain events said to have occurred in Bethlehem two thousand years ago. Might I modestly suggest that, at the very least, it is the story of a most extravagant gift?
So bring on the mechanized reindeer and inflatable yard decorations. Festoon your home with lights, bulbs, and plastic figurines. Find a quiet place and ponder the big questions. Christmas is a magical holiday bursting with contradictions I choose not to resist. I can, with no sense of irony, reflect on the Mystery of this season while locating just the right place to hang my dogs’ Christmas stockings. Don’t resist absurdities like these. We live by the grace of extravagant gifts we cannot comprehend.
Eventually, I will shovel my driveway and return the lights to their proper place. Order shall be restored, but it can wait for a warmer day. In the meantime, I will continue to ponder the mysteries of the season from the warm side of my window. Christmas unites the spiritually profound and the profoundly ridiculous. Come to think of it, so do we.
Merry Christmas!
