The
Spirit Of Christmas
The
Spirit Of Christmas
It's just a small,
white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree.
No
name, no identification, no inscription.
It has peeked through the
branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so...
It all began because my husband
Mike hated Christmas---oh,
not the true meaning of Christmas,
but
the commercial aspects of it-overspending...
the frantic running
around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry
and the
dusting powder for Grandma---
the gifts given in desperation because
you couldn't think of anything else.
Knowing he felt this way, I
decided one year to bypass the usual shirts,
sweaters, ties and so
forth.
I reached for something special just for Mike.
The
inspiration came in an unusual way.
Our son Kevin, who was 12 that
year,
was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended;
and shortly before Christmas,
there was a non-league match against a
team sponsored by an inner-city church.
These youngsters, dressed in
sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed
to be the only thing
holding them together,
presented a sharp contrast to our boys in
their spiffy blue
and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling
shoes.
As the match began, I was alarmed
to see that the other team was wrestling
without headgear, a kind of
light helmet designed to protect a wrestler's ears.
It was a
luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford.
Well, we ended up walloping them.
We took every weight class.
And as each of their boys got up from
the mat,
he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado,
a
kind of street pride that couldn't acknowledge defeat.
Mike, seated beside me, shook his
head sadly,
"I wish just one of them could have won," he said.
"They
have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart
right out of them."
Mike loved kids - all kids-and he
knew them,
having coached little league football, baseball and
lacrosse.
That's when the idea for his present came.
That afternoon, I went to a local
sporting goods store
and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear
and shoes
and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church.
On
Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree,
the note inside
telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me.
His smile was the brightest thing
about Christmas that year and in succeeding years.
For each
Christmas, I followed the tradition---
one year sending a group of
mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game,
another year a
check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had
burned to the
ground the week before Christmas, and on and on.
The envelope became the highlight
of our Christmas.
It was always the last thing opened on Christmas
morning and our children,
ignoring their new toys, would stand with
wide-eyed anticipation
as their dad lifted the envelope from the
tree to reveal its contents.
As the children grew, the toys gave way
to more practical presents,
but the envelope never lost its allure.
The story doesn't end there.
You
see, we lost Mike last year due to dreaded cancer.
When Christmas
rolled around,
I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the
tree up.
But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree,
and in the morning, it was joined by three more.
Each of our
children, unbeknown to the others,
had placed an envelope on the
tree for their dad.
The tradition has grown and
someday will expand even further with our
grandchildren standing
around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation
watching as their
fathers take down the envelope.
Mike's spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us.
~Author Unknown~
