Jesus Christ, the Savior and the Son of God, appeared this Christmas season for a moment among the people of the world. Oh, of course, this was not the coming in which He will appear according to his promise at the end of time in all His heavenly glory, and which will be sudden "as lightning flashing from east to west." No, He visited the modern world briefly as if to catch the real spirit of man in his enlightened age. He came softly and unobserved, and appropriately, He came during the Christmas season. The multi-colored lights and trappings, the green boughs of the Yule tree, the hasty greeting of the season, and the nervous movements of crowds flowing from store to store, all signified the approach of Christmas-tide.

Perhaps the trace of a wry smile lightened His features as He thought of all this feverish activity. Truly, what was man celebrating and to what purpose? Supposedly they reveled in and paid homage to His birth. It mattered not so much that the time of celebration was altered from the actual event. What did matter was the spirit and intent engendered by the occasion. To determine the depth and direction of this spirit and intent was the purpose of His visit.

He moved silently in our midst with a gentle countenance and a smile of infinite compassion. The sun of love burning in His heart; light and power shining from His eyes. Yet, to nearly all, He is unrecognized - but not totally so. An old man, blind from childhood, passing in the throng, touched His garments and perceived His being. "O, Lord, heal me and I shall see," the old man cried.

And as it were, scales fell from his eyes and the blind man saw.

A child of the street, not too long from His heavenly presence, felt His influence and placed her tiny hand in His. This brief encounter with its silent exchange of knowing confidence and guileless love was reminiscent of similar occasions so long ago.

The blind man and the child shared for a brief moment that the entire world sought but was too busy to recognize.

He passed on through the madding throng, absorbing the moods of the occasion. A young couple stood in front of the music store. They were arguing rather heatedly over their financia1 status. These two, who were tenderly endeared to one another less than an hour ago, were now in real danger of losing that sweet feeling.

"Oh, my children," thought the Saviour. "As if the true spirit of love was measured by the cost or size of a trinket."

He recalled the story told of another couple - the cutting of her hair to provide a watch chain - and the sale of his watch to provide matching combs for her hair. Would that all lovers could feel this same spirit toward each other.

He passed by the unhappy opponents, fleetingly touching each in turn.

Her lowered eyes, jeweled with tears, raised to meet those of her mate. "I do love you."

"And I, you," he replied.

The young voices of a quartet emenated from the music store. The words: "All I want for Christmas is to keep the things I have."

The Saviour, seeking sanctuary from the milling shoppers, made His way into a building and became a spectator, with others, of the traditional first grade portrayal of His birth. Emerson School had enacted the nativity story each year since its founding. This year the presentation had proved like all the rest, a test for teachers to get the correct reactions from six-year-old shepherds and wise men. One problem had been particularly persistent. The little boy with the round face and the very tender heart had been asked to play the part of the innkeeper. Each practice, when the time came for him to deny the saintly Mary and the quiet Joseph a place to sleep, he would develop a quivering lip and finally break into tears. He was just not able to turn them away. Finally, the teacher in charge felt that an understanding had been reached. She had carefully explained to the weeping innkeeper that it wasn't really his fault that the inn was full. It was just completely sold out and there was nothing he could do about it. This explanation seemed to restore the necessary emotional balance and the nativity was presented. The crucial moment arrived when the innkeeper had to do this imperative duty.

"There is no..." A quivering lip. ". . .room." A sob, a pause, and then a half smile. "But won't you come in for a drink of water?"

There was little wonder in the Saviour's heart as to why little children made up the bulk of His kingdom.

The department store was large and stocked to overflowing with nearly every conceivable device and need of man. The Christ made his way through the mountains of merchandise that paled the remembrances of the Phoenician bazaars and trading ships of long ago. A knot of people in one corner of the store attracted His attention. A flaxen bearded man with a red suit and black boots sat on a chair at the head of a long line of children and parents. Santa Claus looked tired and Jesus felt a distinct kinship to him, for He understood how tiring a day of requests could be.

Two little girls - one six and the other about three - made their way forward and essenced themselves on each knee of the bewhiskered union man. The usual pattern of questions and answers followed.

"And what do you want Santa to bring you this Christmas?"

Instead of really listening to the replies, Santa was noticing the poor material and roughly patched clothing of the two. Stringy hair and pinched faces surrounded bright and expectant eyes.

"And have you been good little girls?"

Again, he failed to hear. Their stockings had long ago lost their elasticity and their shoes had disintegrated under the relentless wear given them.

Santa gave each eager pair of hands the plastic bank the store had provided for each child as a memento of the occasion. But he couldn't seem to let the experience end here. He reached into his pocket and drew forth nine coins and proceeded to place them alternately in each bank. The intense childish eyes grew wide with excitement, and Santa saw what joy even his small offering was bringing. Each coin had been received with such ecstacy that he wished each one could have been a hundred in number. Each child had four coins in her possession and a moment of decision had arrived - what to do with the ninth?

Santa asked, "And who should I give this last one to?" The older and more precocious spoke with little hesitation. "Give it to my little sister."

The Saviour saw the mist of emotion cloud the eyes of Santa Claus as he placed a kiss on two cheeks.

The Redeemer left as He had come, quietly and unobserved. He had seen and felt some of the good and the bad of the world. But He left with a confidence that right would prevail. The jarring and contending of governments seemed to be offset by the inherent good will emanating from man to man. It is true that the excessive commercial drive and intent of the Christmas season reminded Him somewhat of the money changers in a past time, but the spirit of "giving" was everywhere prevalent and dominated the commercialism found in some quarters. He noticed, too, that often the true meaning of Christmas was submerged under fable and folly. And yet, the underlying strength of the real story permeated all the other and influenced it for good.
~ Author Unknown ~

From its first publication, "A Christmas Carol" has charmed and inspired millions. There have been scores of editions and translations, and many stage, TV and film adaptations, making it one of the best-loved stories of all time. Less well known is the fact that this little book of celebration grew out of a dark period in the author's career - and, in some ways, changed the course of his life forever.

The Second Greatest Christmas Story Ever Told
(Originally published in Reader's Digest, December 1989)

On an early October evening in 1843, Charles Dickens stepped from the brick-and-stone portico of his home near Regent's Park in London. The cool air of dusk was a relief from the day's unseasonal humidity, as the author began his nightly walk through what he called "the black streets" of the city.

A handsome man with flowing brown hair and normally sparkling eyes, Dickens was deeply troubled. The 31-year-old father of four had thought he was at the peak of his career. The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby had all been popular; and Martin Chuzzlewit, which he considered his finest novel yet, was being published in monthly installments. But now, the celebrated writer was facing serious financial problems.

Some months earlier, his publisher had revealed that sales of the new novel were not what had been expected, and it might be necessary to sharply reduce Dickens's monthly advances against future sales.

The news had stunned the author. It seemed his talent was being questioned. Memories of his childhood poverty resurfaced. Dickens was supporting a large, extended family, and his expenses were already nearly more than he could handle. His father and brothers were pleading for loans. His wife, Kate, was expecting their fifth child.

All summer long, Dickens worried about his mounting bills, especially the large mortgage that he owed on his house. He spent time at a seaside resort, where he had trouble sleeping and walked the cliffs for hours. He knew that he needed an idea that would earn him a large sum of money, and he needed the idea quickly. But in his depression, Dickens was finding it difficult to write. After returning to London, he hoped that resuming his nightly walks would help spark his imagination.

The yellow glow from the flickering gas lamps lit his way through London's better neighborhoods. Then gradually, as he neared the Thames River, only the dull light from tenement windows illuminated the streets, now litter-strewn and lined with open sewers. The elegant ladies and well-dressed gentlemen of Dickens's neighborhood were replaced by bawdy streetwalkers, pickpockets, footpads and beggars.

The dismal scene reminded him of the nightmare that often troubled his sleep: A 12-year-old boy sits at a worktable piled high with pots of black boot paste. For 12 hours a day, six days a week, he attaches labels on the endless stream of pots to earn the six shillings that will keep him alive.

The boy in the dream looks through the rotting warehouse floor into the cellar, where swarms of rats scurry about. Then he raises his eyes to the dirt-streaked window, dripping with condensation from London's wintry weather. The light is fading now, along with the boy's young hopes. His father is in debtors' prison, and the youngster is receiving only an hour of school lessons during his dinner break at the warehouse. He feels helpless, abandoned. There may never be celebration, joy or hope again...

This was no scene from the author's imagination. It was a period from his early life. Fortunately, Dickens' father had inherited some money, enabling him to pay off his debts and get out of prison - and his young son escaped a dreary fate.

Now the fear of being unable to pay his own debts haunted Dickens. Wearily, he started home from his long walk, no closer to an idea for the "cheerful, glowing" tale he wanted to tell than he'd been when he started out.

However, as he neared home, he felt the sudden flash of inspiration. What about a Christmas story! He would write one for the very people he passed on the black streets of London. People who lived and struggled with the same fears and longings he had known, people who hungered for a bit of cheer and hope.

But Christmas was less than three months away! How could he manage so great a task in so brief a time? The book would have to be short, certainly not a full novel. It would have to be finished by the end of November to be printed and distributed in time for Christmas sales. For speed, he struck on the idea of adapting a Christmas-goblin story from a chapter in The Pickwick Papers.

He would fill the story with the scenes and characters his readers loved. There would be a small, sickly child; his honest but ineffectual father; and, at the center of the piece, a selfish villain, an old man with a pointed nose and shriveled cheeks.

As the mild days of October gave way to a cool November, the manuscript grew, page by page, and the story took life. The basic plot was simple enough for children to understand, but evoked themes that would conjure up warm memories and emotions in an adult's heart: After retiring alone to his cold, barren apartment on Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly London businessman, is visited by the spirit of his dead partner, Jacob Marley. Doomed by his greed and insensitivity to his fellow man when alive, Marley's ghost wanders the world in chains forged of his own indifference. He warns Scrooge that he must change, or suffer the same fate. The ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come appear and show Scrooge poignant scenes from his life and what will occur if he doesn't mend his ways. Filled with remorse, Scrooge renounces his former selfishness and becomes a kind, generous, loving person who has learned the true spirit of Christmas.

Gradually, in the course of his writing, something surprising happened to Dickens. What had begun as a desperate, calculated plan to rescue himself from debt - "a little scheme," as he described it - soon began to work a change in the author. As he wrote about the kind of Christmas he loved - joyous family parties with clusters of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling; cheerful carols, games, dances and gifts; delicious feasts of roast goose, plum pudding, fresh breads, all enjoyed in front of a blazing Yule log - the joy of the season he cherished began to alleviate his depression.

A Christmas Carol captured his heart and soul. It became a labor of love. Every time he dipped his quill pen into his ink, the characters seemed magically to take life: Tiny Tim with his crutches, Scrooge cowering in fear before the ghosts, Bob Cratchit drinking Christmas cheer in the face of poverty.

Each morning, Dickens grew excited and impatient to begin the day's work. "I was very much affected by the little book," he later wrote a newspaperman, and was "reluctant to lay it aside for a moment." A friend and Dickens's future biographer, John Forster, took note of the "strange mastery" the story held over the author. Dickens told a professor in America how, when writing, he "wept, and laughed, and wept again." Dickens even took charge of the design of the book, deciding on a gold-stamped cover, a red and green title page with colored endpapers, and four hand-colored etchings and four engraved woodcuts. To make the book affordable to the widest audience possible, he priced it at only five shillings.

At last, on December 2, he was finished, and the manuscript went to the printers. On December 17, the author's copies were delivered, and Dickens was delighted. He had never doubted that A Christmas Carol would be popular. But neither he nor his publisher was ready for the overwhelming response that came. The first edition of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve, and as the little book's heartwarming message spread, Dickens later recalled, he received "by every post, all manner of strangers writing all manner of letters about their homes and hearths, and how the Carol is read aloud there, and kept on a very little shelf by itself." Novelist William Makepeace Thackeray said of the Carol: "It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal kindness."

Despite the book's public acclaim, it did not turn into the immediate financial success that Dickens had hoped for, because of the quality production he demanded and the low price he placed on the book. Nevertheless, he made enough money from it to scrape by, and A Christmas Carol's enormous popularity revived his audience for subsequent novels, while giving a fresh, new direction to his life and career.

Although Dickens would write many other well-received and financially profitable books - David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations - nothing would ever quite equal the soul-satisfying joy he derived from his universally loved little novel. In time, some would call him the Apostle of Christmas. And, at his death in 1870, a poor child in London was heard to ask: "Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?"

In a very real sense, Dickens popularized many aspects of the Christmas we celebrate today, including great family gatherings, seasonal drinks and dishes and gift giving. Even our language has been enriched by the tale. Who has not known a "Scrooge," or uttered "Bah! Humbug!" when feeling irritated or disbelieving. And the phrase "Merry Christmas!" gained wider usage after the story appeared.

In the midst of self-doubt and confusion, a man sometimes does his best work. From the storm of tribulation comes a gift. For Charles Dickens, a little Christmas novel brought new-found faith in himself and in the redemptive joy of the season.
~ Thomas J. Burns ~

A beautiful Christmas Legend is told of Babouscka, a story known and treasured for centuries by the people of all the European countries lying between France and Russia.

In the land that is now Southern Russia, on the night when the Christ-child was born, an old woman sat alone in her little cottage, gazing into the flames that danced on her hearth. Outside the shrill, cold winds of winter howled dismally. Snow was blanketing the earth in a white carpet, and the ice-covered branches of the trees crackled in the wind. The old woman was glad that she had a fire, that she could sleep warm in her snug little bed, that she did not have to go out into the cold.

Suddenly a rap came upon her door, and when she had opened it, three stately old men entered her cottage. They had flowing white beards, wore kingly robes and carried expensively wrapped packages.

"We have traveled far, Babouscka," they said, "and we stop to tell you of the Baby Prince who has been born this night in Bethlehem. He comes to rule the world and to teach all men and women to be loving and true. We carry Him gifts. Come with us, Babouscka!"

But she shrank back as she heard the storm beating mercilessly upon her little cottage, and would not leave her cozy room. So the old men journeyed on alone through the snow and the wind and the cold. Babouscka could not sleep that night for thinking of what the men had told her, and of the wonderful opportunity they had offered her to see the Prince. At last she decided that, when the dawn came, she would set out alone to find the Babe, and perhaps on the way she would come upon the old men.

In the morning she put on her heavy cloak, took up her staff, filled a basket with gold balls, wooden toys, brilliant trinkets, and set out to find the Christ-child. But she had forgotten to ask the three old men the way to Bethlehem, and they had journeyed so far through the night that she could not overtake them.

Up and down the roads she hurried, through woods and fields and towns, saying to all whom she met, "I go to find the Christ-child. Where does He lie? I bring Him some pretty toys." But no one could tell her the way. Each one shook his head and said, "Farther on, Babouscka, farther on!"

So she traveled for years and years, and never found the Child. In Europe, they say that she is still traveling, and that, on Christmas Eve, when children are fast asleep, she comes softly through snowy fields and towns, wrapped in a cloak and carrying a basket. Steadily she enters each house and holds a candle close to the little children's faces. "Is He here?" she whispers. "Is the little Christ-child here?" Then she shakes her head and turns away sorrowfully, sighing, "Farther on, Babouscka, farther on!" But she leaves a toy from her basket for each sleeping little one - "For His sake," she whispers, and hurries on through the night.

And next morning, on Christmas day, when the children find toys in their beds, they are told that Babouscka must have been there while they slept.
~ Featured Article in Sunshine Magazine ~

Shortly after the culmination of the Second World War, a devastated city in England began its heartbreaking and weary work of restoration. In the old city square had stood a large statue of Jesus Christ with His hands outspread in an attitude of invitation. On the pedestal were carved the words, "Come unto me."

In the process of the restoration of the statue, with the aid of master artists and sculptors, the figure eventually was reassembled, except for the hands of which no fragments could be discovered anywhere in the surrounding rubble. Someone made the suggestion that the artists, since the former hands could not be found, would have to fashion new hands.

Later came a public protest, couched in the words, "No, leave Him without hands!" So today, in the public square of that English city, the restored statue of Christ stands without hands, and on its base are carved the words, "Christ has no hands but ours!"

At this Christmas time, let's think of something we can do.
~ Author Unknown ~

Faith and hope and love, which cannot be bought or sold or bartered, but only given away, are the wellsprings - firm and deep - of Christmas celebrations. These are the gifts without price, the ornaments incapable of imitation, discovered only within oneself, and are, therefore, unique. They are not always easy to come by, but they are in unlimited supply - ever in the province of all.

This Christmas, mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion, and replace it with trust. Write a love letter. Share some treasure. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Listen. Apologize if you are wrong. Try to understand. Flout envy. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Appreciate. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little. Laugh a little more. Deserve confidence. Take up arms against malice. Express your gratitude. Go to church. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of this earth. These are inklings of a vast category ... a mere scratching of the surface.

They are simple things. You have heard them all before, but their influence has never been measured.
~ Author Unknown ~