The Gift of the Magi


Christmas is not my favorite religious holiday.  I like Christmas and I do not mind the mixture of secular with religious messages that it holds.  It is just that for religious significance Easter and Reformation Day hold stronger messages.  But today is Christmas Eve and I am enjoying the spirit of the season despite the above disclaimers.  It is Christmas’s secular trappings that always draw me in.

I love Christmas trees (pagan), Christmas cards and letters (Hallmark), Santa Claus (a Turkish monk), and all the glitter of wrapped gifts.   Oddly, I hate opening the packages.  They look so lovely, their contents a magical mystery of endless conjure.  Even as a child I would sit back and watch everyone else open their gifts and I would defer, defer, defer.  I still do. 

There is an endless supply of great Christmas movies.  George C. Scott is amazing in A Christmas Carol.  Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life; the musical schmaltz of Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas.  And there is nothing that hits the nostalgia button for people my age like Ralphie’s quest for a Red Ryder BB gun in A Christmas Story.   But the thing that I really can’t get enough of is the stories of Christmas. 

I absolutely love reading aloud Clement Moore’s 1822 poem, “An Account of a Visit From St. Nicholas” which is now known simply as, “The Night Before Christmas.”   But that is not my favorite.  

When it comes to showing what Christmas can mean in a strictly worldly sense, you can not beat William Sydney Porter’s timeless story, “The Gift of the Magi.”  Porter wrote under the name, “O’Henry” and was the master of the short story.  This much troubled, alcoholic and possibly criminal man was a master of many arts.  He could sing, draw, act and certainly, he was a skilled writer.  He is frequently compared to Guy de Maupassant in literary skill and use of the, “cosmic irony” in his story endings.  All of his skills come together in, “The Gift of the Magi.”

Here is the story of two people: hopelessly poor and hopelessly in love. They each sell the only thing of value that they own in order to buy a gift for the other.  The wife, Della, sells her magnificent hair to get a watch fob for her husband’s grand watch.  Meanwhile, Jim has sold his watch to get Della a set of beautiful combs for her hair.  The story ends with this grand message:
 
The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.  [To read the whole story go to: www.online-literature.com]

This story reminds us that Christmas truly represents what is in our hearts to a greater degree than what is of the world.  Christmas can be an aura, a hope, a thought of what lies ahead for both the Babe and this world.  We show all of this in worldly ways, because the world is what we have.  That can be enough if we try, very hard, to be the Magi.

Merry Christmas, and share the faith. 

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