My most memorable Christmas

Original date 12/2000

I have experienced 57 Christmas seasons.  There have been no bad ones and there have been several special ones.  However, there is one that is very special.  One that I will never forget.  One  that taught me the true meaning of the Christmas season.  Please let me share that memory with you.

As a ten year boy in 1954,  I had reached the point of almost not believing in Santa.   I wanted to believe very much.  There were some older friends of mine that had stopped believing and I had noticed that they only got clothes for Christmas.  I was not ready for the clothes thing yet. 

I had found an ad in the back of a comic book for a toy that was popular in those days called a Kiddy Projector.  It projected pictures to a wall or screen if you put the projector over a picture.  I think the toy cost about $5.00.  I wanted a Kiddy Projector and I wanted one BAD.... I wrote a letter to Santa and pleaded for the toy projector.  I dropped the letter in the mail box and waited for Christmas day.

My brother, Alan, and I stayed awake that Christmas eve talking until nearly midnight.   Finally we went to sleep.  The next thing that I remember is hearing a noise about 2 am that I thought  was Santa leaving through the front door.  We didn't have a chimney and we didn't even have a lock on the door back then.  I immediately got up and went into the front room and to my surprise, there was my projector.  However it was not my Kiddie Projector, it was this, a 16 mm KEYSTONE  projector. 

I am not sure if it was my excitement or Santa leaving, but something woke up mom and dad.  And isn't it strange, they were already dressed.  Soon my brother joined the group and there in our living room, we were watching Tim Holt, Woody Woodpecker, Abbot and Costello and Chimps Jamboree.  We watched them over and over again.  Soon it was daylight and the excitement was still going strong.

Now you may wonder why this is such a special memory for me, even now after all these years..   I want to make it very clear that it was not the gift.  As you look at this projector, you will see that it is all rusty.  The wires are all rotten.  It hasn't been used in several years.  The films have long been lost.  No, it was not the gift.  It was the fact that it was more than I asked for.  It was something that I did not deserve.  It was something that my parents could not afford.   It was something they did for me just because they loved me.  That is the real meaning of Christmas.

God gave me a gift that first Christmas morning.  It too was something that I did not ask for.  It too was something that I did not deserve.  It too was something that He could not afford.  It too was a gift given just because He loved me.  That is the true meaning of CHRISTmas.

May God bless you every day of your life.