A True Story of Christmas Spirit

Christmas may be the "season" for being generous and kind, but I think you're likely to have a richer, fuller life if you can make "Christmas Spirit" a full-time part of who you are.

My grandmother did this. Gran was absolutely the kindest and most personally generous woman I have ever known, always gentle and understanding, and very nearly impossible to anger. I'm sure of this, because my four siblings and I were a real handful, and each summer when our family drove down for our two-week visit we gave her plenty to get angry about. Yet I never ever heard a cross word from her.

Gran was also devoutly religious. In those days, of course, everyone in Ft. Smith, Arkansas was religious, but we all knew that Gran was the real deal. She had a kind of generosity of spirit, she spent time with those in need, and was quick to understand and to forgive. A musician all her life, she was also the organist for the largest Baptist Church in Arkansas.

Then in 1966 Gran was diagnosed with breast cancer. At that time, such a diagnosis was a virtual death sentence. The doctors gave her a year or so. My mother wept and wept.

In her final days the next summer, Gran spent a lot of time out on the sleeping porch. Before air conditioning came to the Deep South, everyone who could afford it had a screened-in porch for sleeping. And even though my grandparents had recently moved into a new house with central air, their new house still had a sleeping porch in the back, and during this final summer Gran spent a great deal of time out there. By herself.

My grandfather noticed this, and was careful to respect her privacy, because everyone knew that Gran was making her peace with the Lord, reading her Bible, and preparing herself. Soon, however, the day came when she went to the hospital for the last time, and then she passed away. It was August, 1967.

A couple of weeks after the funeral my grandfather went out to the sleeping porch just to tidy things up, but he found that the big storage closet door was locked, and there was no sign of the key anywhere. Gran must have put it somewhere, he didn’t know. (And why would she have wanted to lock the closet door, anyway?)

Eventually, my grandfather had to take the hinges off the closet door just to get it open. And inside? Inside the closet, what he found was – Christmas presents. Stacks of Christmas presents, all piled up and waiting to be discovered. Neatly wrapped and tied with ribbons. Gran had addressed one to each of us, to be opened during the Christmas holiday she wouldn't live to see.

I still have the present she gave me. It was a New Testament. She had inscribed it “To Donnie, with my dearest love. And I hope this Bible will mean as much to you as it has to me. Gran. July 1967.”

This holiday season, as we all scramble to find the best deals on gifts for our kids, as parties and celebrations take place all around us, be sure to pause every once in a while just to be thankful for the generosity and good wishes of others. And why not try to maintain your Christmas Spirit even after the holiday? See how long you can make it last!

The sad truth is I'm not too sure the Bible has meant as much to me in my life as it did to Gran in hers. I’m not half the Christian she was, although from time to time I do try to improve myself on that scale.

But of one thing I'm certain: This woman -- my Gran -- truly had “the Christmas Spirit.”

Pass it on...