Our nearest neighbors were always miles away. Life happened outside: barefoot summers on soft moss and pine beds, fishing for brook trout, learning to read clouds in the sky above and animal tracks in the soft dirt below. Winters brought deep snow; we skied or snowshoed behind Dad, checking for poachers or fallen trees on roads no one else traveled. The seasons announced themselves by scent—spring sap, summer dust, autumn smoke, winter’s clean bite. We had no television for years, only a crackling radio and books hauled home from the distant town library. As kids, the forest fed us berries and mushrooms, warmed us with wood we split ourselves, and gave our imaginations room to roam.
Christmas, though, let the outside world in.
Every week we traveled many miles to church in a small branch. At Christmas we’d drive even further to the city for a church holiday event. There, my father—six-foot-four, two-hundred-forty pounds, built like the pines he tended—became Santa Claus. Children lined up to climb onto his lap and whisper their wishes. I always knew it was him beneath the red suit and white beard.
One year, the last time I ever sat there, I looked straight into his eyes and spoke my ten-year-old resentment. I told him how poor we were, how I knew we would never have the bright store-bought toys I coveted from catalogs. I asked, just once, for a “real” Christmas present. In that moment, I saw tears gather in his eyes, run onto his cheeks and disappear into his beard. He knew I knew who he was, and I knew he knew. My words cut him deeply—deliberately, cruelly. Instead of thanking him for the rich, wild, beautiful life he had given us in the heart of God’s creation, I complained about what we lacked.
That memory still pierces me every Christmas. I weep when I recall how I wounded the man who sacrificed everything for us. I would give anything to go back, to climb onto his lap again and say thank you—for the forest mornings, the handmade gifts, the love poured into every imperfect detail.
Our tree was one we cut ourselves, often leaning no matter how we braced it. Ornaments were pinecones painted with dull water colors, strings of popcorn, stars folded from old calendars. Gifts never came from stores. Mom sewed on her sewing machine – shirts, wool-lined mittens, quilts pieced from saved scraps, pants with fake labels sewn into the pocket so the kids at school would think they were from the store. Dad carved – animals, flutes, slingshots. We baked cookies and slathered them with watery icing and boiled cinnamon until the cabin smelled like heaven.
Those gifts carried the weight of time and care. Yet at ten, having seen the gleaming pages of the Sears catalog, they felt like not enough. I smiled and thanked my parents—I knew the labor behind each one—but inside I ached for what “other kids” had.
Fifty-five years later, in a far more comfortable house with all the modern conveniences and a flawless store-bought tree, I find myself longing for those handmade things: Dad’s slightly crooked wooden fox with knot-hole eyes, Mom’s red mitten whose thumb she ripped out and re-sewed three times to make it fit just right, our lopsided cookies iced amid laughter. Store toys break or are forgotten in a season; those gifts live on because they carried the hearts of the givers.
Now I see clearly what I could not see then: every good thing we received was a small echo of the greatest Gift ever given.
Our parents’ humble offerings pointed, however imperfectly, to the Father who gave His only Son. Jesus did not arrive in palace splendor with effortless abundance. He came in poverty—a baby laid in a feeding trough, wrapped in rags, born to parents who could offer no more than love and obedience. Yet in that stable the true wealth of the universe was revealed: God Himself, entering our scarcity to give us what no catalog could ever contain—forgiveness, reconciliation, eternal life.
The toys I once envied have long since vanished. But the love woven into handmade mittens and carved cedar foxes endures, just as the love that sent a Savior endures forever.
My childhood regret has become a lifelong teacher: be slow to complain, quick to give thanks. For in the end, the only wealth that matters is measured not by what lies under the tree, but by the One who hung upon it—Christ Jesus, God’s perfect gift to an ungrateful world, including a ten-year-old boy who once made Santa cry.
This Christmas, may we all receive Him anew with open, thankful hearts.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life” (John 2:2 RE).
“In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 1:14 RE)
Signed
John The-Not-So-Beloved
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