A
Heartwarming Christmas
Story
By:
Unknown
SIMPLE
WHITE ENVELOPE
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 -- the
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.
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 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, unbeknownst 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. May we all remember Christ, who is the
reason for the season, and the true
Christmas spirit this year and
always.
Merry
Christmas from Bob, family and all
of us at MakingChristKnown.com
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Although we have made every effort to
provide solid and accurate information
about Christmas on these pages, Bob Pardue
or Making Christ Known accepts no
responsibility or does the site insure or
imply any degree of expertise about the
validity of your individual beliefs. The
use and understanding of these religeous
ideas varies greatly dependent upon the
talent, attitudes, attributes and ambition
of each individual person.
Always
thoroughly check out any information you
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accuracy of this Christmas
story.
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