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The Best Gift
Betty Werth
On Christmas Eve, a young boy with light in his eyes
Looked deep into Santa’s, to Santa’s surprise
And said as he sat on Santa’s broad knee,
"I want your secret. Tell it to me."
He leaned up and whispered in Santa’s good ear
"How do you do it, year after year?"
"I want to know how, as you travel about,
Giving gifts here and there, you never run out.
How is it, dear Santa, that in your pack of toys
You have plenty for all of the world’s girls and boys?
Stays so full, never empties, as you make your way
From rooftop to rooftop, to homes large and small,
From nation to nation, reaching them all?"
And Santa smiled kindly and said to the boy,
"Don’t ask me hard questions. Don’t you want a toy?"
But the child shook his head, and Santa could see
That he needed the answer. "Now listen to me,"
He told that small boy with the light in his eyes,
"My secret will make you sadder and wise.
"The truth is that my sack is magic inside
It holds millions of toys for my Christmas Eve ride.
But although I do visit each girl and each boy
I don’t always leave them a gaily wrapped toy.
Some homes are hungry, some homes are sad,
Some homes are desperate, some homes are bad.
Some homes are broken, and the children there grieve.
Those homes I visit, but what should I leave?
"My sleigh is filled with the happiest stuff,
But for homes where despair lives toys aren’t enough.
So I tiptoe in, kiss each girl and boy,
And I pray with them that they’ll be given the joy
Of the spirit of Christmas, the spirit that lives
In the heart of the dear child who gets not, but gives.
"If only God hears me and answers my prayer,
When I visit next year, what I will find there
Are homes filled with peace, and with giving, and love
And boys and girls gifted with light from above.
It’s a very hard task, my smart little brother,
To give toys to some, and to give prayers to others.
But the prayers are the best gifts, the best gifts indeed,
For God has a way of meeting each person’s need.
"That’s part of the answer. The rest, my dear youth,
Is that my sack is magic. And that is the truth.
In my sack I carry on Christmas Eve day
More love than a Santa could ever give away.
The sack never empties of love, or of joys
`Cause inside it are prayers, and hope. Not just toys.
The more that I give, the fuller it seems,
Because giving is my way of fulfilling dreams.
"And do you know something? You’ve got a sack, too.
It’s as magic as mine, and it’s inside of you.
It never gets empty, it’s full from the start.
It’s the center of light, and love. It’s your heart.
And if on this Christmas you want to help me,
Don’t be so concerned with the gifts `neath your tree.
Open that sack called your heart, and share
Your joy, your friendship, your wealth, your care."
The light in the small boy’s eyes was glowing.
"Thanks for your secret. I’ve got to be going."
"Wait, little boy," said Santa, "don’t go.
Will you share? Will you help? Will you use what you know?"
And just for a moment the small boy stood still,
Touched his heart with his small hand and whispered, "I will."
This one is a true life story
about the writing of the beloved
"Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"....
The True Story of Rudolph
source unknown
On a December night in Chicago many years ago, a little girl climbed onto her father's lap and asked a question. It was a simple question, asked in children's curiosity, yet it had a heart-rending effect on Robert May.
"Daddy," four-year-old Barbara May asked, "Why isn't my mommy just like everybody else's mommy?"
Bob May stole a glance across his shabby two-room apartment. On a couch lay his young wife, Evelyn, racked with cancer. For two years she had been bedridden. For two years, all of Bob's small income and smaller savings had gone to pay for treatments and medication.
The terrible ordeal had already shattered two adult lives. Now, Bob suddenly realized the happiness of his growing daughter was also in jeopardy. As he ran his fingers through Barbara's hair, he groped for some satisfactory answer to her question.
Bob May knew only too well what it meant to be 'different'. As a child he had been weak and delicate. With the innocent cruelty of children, his playmates had continually goaded the stunted, skinny lad to tears. Later, at Dartsmouth, from which he graduated in 1936, Bob May was so small that he was always being mistaken for someone's little brother.
Nor was his adult life much happier. Unlike many of his classmates who floated from college into plush jobs, Bob became a lowly copy writer for Montgomery Ward, the big Chicago mail order house. Now at 33, Bob was deep in debt, depressed and sad.
Although, he didn't know it at the time, the answer he gave the little child on his lap was to bring him fame and fortune. It was also to bring joy to countless thousands of children like his own Barbara. On that December night in the shabby Chicago apartment, Bob cradled the little girl's head against his shoulder and began to tell a story . . .
"Once upon a time, there was a reindeer named Rudolph, the only reindeer in the world that had a big red nose. Naturally people called him "Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer." As Bob went on to tell about Rudolph, he tried desperately to communicate to Barbara the knowledge that, even though some creatures of God are strange and different, they often enjoy the miraculous power to make others happy.
"Rudolph," Bob explained, "was terribly embarrassed by his unique nose. Other reindeer laughed at him; his mother and father and sister were mortified, too. Even Rudolph wallowed in self pity."
"Why was I born with such a terrible nose?" he cried.
"Well," continued Bob, "one Christmas eve, Santa Claus got his team of husky reindeer - Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen, and the others -- ready for their yearly trip around the world. The entire reindeer community assembled to cheer these great heroes on their way. But, a terrible fog engulfed the earth that evening, and Santa knew that the mist was so thick that he wouldn't be able to find a single chimney."
"Suddenly Rudolph appeared, his read nose glowing brighter than ever. Santa sensed at once that here was the answer to his perplexing problem. He led Rudolph to the front of the sleigh, fastened the harness and climbed in. They were off! Rudolph guided Santa safely to every chimney that night. Rain, and fog, snow and sleet -- nothing bothered Rudolph for his bright red nose penetrated like a beacon."
"And, so it was that Rudolph became the most famous and beloved of all the reindeer. The huge red nose he once hid in shame was now the envy of every buck and doe in the reindeer world. Santa Claus told everyone that Rudolph had saved the day, and from that Christmas on, Rudolph has been living serenely and happy."
Little Barbara laughed with glee when her father had finished. Every night she begged him to repeat the tale until finally Bob could rattle it off in his sleep. Then, at Christmas time, he decided to make the story into a poem like the 'Night Before Christmas' and prepare it in a booklet form with crude illustrations, for Barbara's personal gift.
Night after night, Bob worked on the verses after Barbara had gone to bed, for he was determined that his daughter should have a worthwhile gift, even though he could not afford to buy one.
Then, as Bob was about to put the finishing touches on Rudolph, tragedy struck. Evelyn May died. Bob, his hopes crushed, turned to Barbara as his chief comfort. Yet, despite his grief, he sat at his desk in the quiet, now lonely apartment, and worked on Rudolph with tears in his eyes.
Shortly after Barbara had cried with joy over his handmade gift on Christmas morning, Bob was asked to an employee's holiday party at Montgomery Wards. He didn't want to go, but his office associates insisted. When Bob finally agreed, he took with him the poem and read it to the crowd. At first the noisy throng listened in laughter and gaiety. Then, they became silent, and at the end broke into spontaneous applause. That was in 1938.
By Christmas of 1947, some 6 million copies of the booklet had been given away or sold, making Rudolph one of the most widely distributed books in the world. The demand for Rudolph sponsored products increased so much in variety and number that educators and historians predicted Rudolph would occupy a permanent niche in the Christmas legend.
Through the years of unhappiness, the tragedy of his wife's death and his ultimate success with Rudolph, Bob May has captured a sense of serenity. And as each Christmas rolls around he recalled with thankfulness the night when his daughter's questions inspired him to write the story.
And finally, THE famous editorial written by Francis P. Church,
the son of a Baptist minister, in response to a little girl's letter to
the New York Sun over a hundred years ago.
The piece was reprinted every year
until the paper went out of business in 1949.
Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus
Editorial Page, New York Sun, 1897
We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:
Dear Editor---
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
115 West Ninety-fifth St.
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Amen, Mr. Church! Amen!!
And now, journey if you will, to a far away place, long, long ago,
where a child was born to a poor carpenter and his wife...
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