Very Special Gifts

A gift from a busy father

Across the city a wealthy businessman was talking to a friend: “Guess what I am giving my boy for his Christmas?” Expecting it to be some mega expensive present the man handed him a paper on which was written: “To my dear son, I give you one hour on each weekday and two hours of my Sunday, to be used as you wish. Your loving father.” His friend was thinking, “What a gift! Your time is the greatest gift a man can give”.

Robert Harvey, Personal Life Coach

A very special gift

A little boy had bought his grandmother a Bible for Christmas. He wanted to write something nice on the inside cover. But he couldn’t think of anything. Then he remembered his dad had a book which he loved because of the inscription in it. He decided to copy it. On Christmas morning when Granny opened her gift she found these neat words in a child’s handwriting:

To Granny
with the compliments of the author.

Robert Harvey, Personal Life Coach

Christmas Memories

My grandmother didn’t know what she could get me for a Christmas gift in 1992 and she questioned my mother, who suggested that Granny write down some of the memories of Christmases of her childhood. She wrote a story, calling it “I Remember Christmas.” Granny was born in 1910, one of eleven children raised in a three-room house with no indoor plumbing or electricity, in the mountains of West Virginia. I knew her life as a child had been much different than the one I’d had, but I wasn’t aware of exactly how until I read her story. It tells of how they gathered holly to decorate with, and pine to burn in the fireplace on Christmas Eve. The children hung their black stockings on the back of a chair in view of the fireplace where Santa would be sure to see them. On Christmas morning, each stocking would be filled with five sticks of candy, an apple, a sweet cake, on rare occasions an orange and sometimes a handful of peanuts in the shell. Christmas breakfast was wheat pone bread, blackberries, pork, honey and butter, and their Dad always said a long prayer before they could go to the table. For Christmas dinner, they had chicken dumplings. At the end of the day, before going to bed, all the children would sit in a circle around the fireplace as their dad read scripture and had the “night prayer.” Those simple Christmases were special memories for my grandmother. She could have told me the stories, but having them in writing is so much better. This gift has been even more special to me because my grandmother passed away the following summer, making this the last Christmas gift I would ever receive from her. Sometimes the simplest gifts are the ones we value most.

Lorinda Stricklen, Blue Creek, WV