IT'S ALL ABOUT THE GIFT

Are you hoping to find something extra-special under the Christmas tree this year? How about a $354,000 special edition McLaren 12C Spider sports car? (Admittedly, you’d have to have a really BIG tree!) Maybe a $100,000 hen house? A $250,000 dinner for 10 prepared by famous chefs? Or for the more budget conscious, a $30,000 walk-on role in “Annie: The Musical?”

Those outrageous items are all from the 2012 Neiman Marcus Christmas Book, an annual catalog known for its fantastic fantasy gifts. The most expensive item this year is a $1.09 million pair of Van Cleef & Arpels watches which depict Parisian scenes. A trip to the famed “City of Light” is also included ,where the buyer gets to actually go visit the pictured places.

Back in my mother’s rural Minnesota of the late 1920’s, and early 30’s my mom and her siblings were apparently thrilled to receive an orange and a pack of gum. No brand new dollies, no shiny metal fire trucks and certainly no Neiman Marcus items. Times were tough on the farm back then, and the kids thought that a piece of out-of-season tropical fruit and tasty chicle were pretty sweet.

When my siblings and I first heard about this orange-and-pack-of-gum- thing we were dumfounded. Was my mother kidding us? Those things weren’t actual presents, were they? How could you have a Christmas like that?

It wasn’t as if there were heaping gift piles under our tree. Times were tough for my parents in the 50’s and 60’s, too. Each one of the four of us received a “big” present from our parents and the brothers and sisters drew names to purchase a smaller gift for the one whose name was drawn. And that was often pretty much it.

What I realize today as an adult in her sixth decade that I did not quite “get” in my first as a child is that Christmas is really only about one present. And it’s what Neiman Marcus doesn’t comprehend: you can have all the money in the world to spend on the most outrageous, over-the-top thing in the world and it won’t matter one itsy bitsy bit. Multi-dollar gifts won’t make Christmas happier, brighter or prettier. No matter how much money you spend on them, they won’t last. The present that makes Christmas, the one that matters, the one that lasts has already been purchased  for you.

This Gift cost the Giver everything. It came at an unexpected time to an unsuspecting people in an unpretentious place. It came in sweet, simple packaging. It came without strings, without price to those who accept it. It promises love, hope, help and acceptance. And it promises life ever after. Best. Gift. Ever. That’s Jesus.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not of works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8