As Christmas draws closer, desperation is sinking in. Suddenly, you realize you literally don’t have enough time to get presents for everybody on your list. How could you have put this off so long?
I am no stranger to procrastination. I procrastinate about everything. I even manage to put off writing down my to-do list. And although Christmas rolls around the same day every year, it always takes me by surprise. One Christmas Eve, when I was 7-years-old, I realized I had not gotten a present for my 4-year-old brother. We lived out in the country and I had no way of getting to town. The Ben Franklin store would be closed anyway. What would my brother like? Then it struck me. When we played with our toy cars, he always admired my red race car, emblazoned with the name “The Chilser” in letters made to look like fire. Pleased with my creative (and economical) choice, I wiped off most of the dirt, wrapped up the car and placed it under the Christmas tree along with the other thoughtful (and admittedly newer) gifts.
On Christmas Day, as we opened our presents, I could hardly contain my own excitement to see the look on my brother’s face when he opened “The Chilser”. My brother loved Christmas. Everything about it made him giggle with joy. He loved the special cookies; he loved playing hide-and-seek in the empty cardboard boxes; he loved blasting the tree ornaments with the guns we got that shot plastic disks. And just as I knew he would, when my brother opened my gift, his eyes grew wide. Then, my older sister said, “Oh, it’s Dan’s old Chiseler.”
Chiseler? All this time, I had been mis-pronouncing it. “The Chiseler,” I thought, crushed. That’s me. I’m the chiseler, palming off my dusty old toy like it was a new Christmas present, bought from a store. I felt like a cheapskate. I felt like…I felt like The Littlest Angel.
“The Littlest Angel” is a heart-warming classic children’s story from 1946 about a 4-year-old angel who was having trouble adjusting to life in Heaven. He sang the hymns off-key; he was always late for prayers and his robes were always dirty (there’s dirt in Heaven?). Sensing the boy was homesick for Earth, the Understanding Angel asked if there was anything he would like from home. What The Littlest Angel wanted was the box of treasures he once kept under his bed. Inside, was a butterfly with gold wings (presumably dead), a blue bird’s egg, a couple of white rocks and the old leather collar from his deceased dog. The boy was thrilled to get his treasures back, however humble and kind of gruesome they were.
Then, the big news around Heaven was that Jesus was about to be born. Many glorious gifts from the other angels were laid out. (Is there a Ben Franklin store for angels?). The boy immediately decided to give Jesus his precious box of treasures. But when he saw the other splendid presents, he grew ashamed of his own scruffy offering and wanted to hide it before God could see it. Well, as we know, you can’t hide anything from God and it turned out, He liked it so much, He transformed the humble box into the Star of Bethlehem.
So, what’s the moral of the story? Your gift may be cheap. It may even be a box of dead bugs and bird eggs. But, to the right person, your gift becomes the best thing ever.