Today we received many wonderful gifts for Christmas.  Each year we spend Christmas morning  delivering presents to the children who live on our road.  They know we are coming.  Their faces beam with excitement and happy anticipation.  For most of the kids, these are the only presents they’ll receive all year.

My favorite part of the day was a phone call we got at the end of the day.  Our friend Carol delivered a gift to a 4 year old boy that lives a few houses from her.  He’s a sweet boy who entertains himself by making boats out of palm branches and string.   Whenever I’m working at Carol’s he always comes over and sits with me asking a world of inspiring questions.  His parents are poor and live in the garage of an abandoned house.  I bought him a scoop loader that has a remote control and Amaranth wrapped it in pretty paper and ribbons.  When Carol gave him the present he was thrilled, jumping up and down.  This was the first wrapped present he had ever gotten.  He thought the box was the gift.  He was absolutely happy to have a pretty box.  Carol had to show him to unwrap the present and his eyes grew brighter as he realized the contents.  Boys love machinery.  He danced in circles and shouted with an uncontainable happiness as he waited for the toy to be freed from its wrappings.  He drove his little toy around forward and backwards, lifting and lowering the bucket, the amber light on top flashing.

When we first married we decided to create our own traditions and this is one them:  to celebrate Christmas by giving Christmas to the ragamuffin children in our lives.  The children give us the gift of wonder and innocent joy.  For Carol the neighbor-boy’s sheer happiness was multiplied in her and that too was a gift to Carol.  When we’re told it’s better to receive than to give it’s true.  Nothing can come close to it. 

Merry Christmas,
Wally & Amaranth