Unwrap the Gift
Published: Friday, December 21, 2018
Packages, ribbons, wrapping paper and bows. I love Christmas gift giving. I love surprising the recipient as much as I love being surprised by the contents underneath the trimmings.
My mom never threw away wrapping paper. That stuff was used and reused; some of it was old enough to vote. On Christmas eve, the paper was slowly and carefully removed from each package under the tree, then handed to her so she could roll it back onto the paper tubing, all ready to go for next year. The evening included knives and scissors close and handy for everyone in the family.
The first year Mr. Berens joined our annual family Christmas eve celebration, he was more than a little surprised when Mom came from the kitchen with a handful of paring knives and started passing them out. He wasn't sure if he had just shown up for a knife fight or if there was another supper course on the way. The look he gave me was part question, part laughter, and part wondering if he had joined a crazy family. I gave him the watch-and-learn look in return. He didn't quite share the same reverence for seeing how many years wrapping paper could be reused. I think my mother gasped a little, when he tore the paper a little more with each box he opened.
He was such a rebel.
Handmade gifts and homemade treats are extra special gifts in my book. The giver has put personal time and effort and energy into creating something special and unique and that, friends, spells love.
I've produced many of those handmade gifts myself. Santa's workshop (better known as my sewing machine) set up shop in a corner of the dining room where it hummed late into the night, pouring out the love in the form of pajamas, shirts, aprons, doll clothes and stuffed animals for friends and family.
The best Christmas gift of all time didn't arrive in an attractive package, although the angel fanfare (i.e. the sparkly packaging) that announced His arrival hasn't been outdone for over 2,000 years.
God's son, a tiny package of perfection, born in a stable and cradled in a feed trough. The shepherds, rough and rugged, hill country herdsmen weren't dressed in their finest, and their entire wardrobe probably consisted of only barn clothes.
And who shows up? Angels. Magnificent and unimaginably beautiful with jaw dropping voices and song. There's a distinct contrast going on. It wasn't the elite who saw the magnificent and beautiful that night. It was the plain, the ordinary, the everyday guy just working for a living, just taking care of the sheep.
It was a handmade gift of pure love, given by the Creator to His creation—the people he loves.
I hope that during this Christmas season, your heart is open to the magnificent, the unimaginable, the holy and the beautiful gift of Christ, given to us, the farmers, the herdsmen, ranchers, the caretakers of the most basic element of His creation.
"For God so loved the world he gave His only begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16.
Bev Berens is a freelance writer and FFA parent from Holland, Mich. She can be contacted at uphillfarm494@yahoo.com.
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