Rediscovering the Christmas Spirit
Don't forget to add these emotional gifts to your list for holiday giving. They cost nothing, but are the most precious presents you can give to your friends and family.
Sweaters, toys, trips--they are all wonderful presents to give. But there are other gifts called psychological gifts that are the most precious gifts you can give to those you love. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "The only gift is a portion of one's self." And that's what these twelve gifts are--gifts of you. They cost nothing, but their effects can last a lifetime.
THE GIFT OF TIME. In our busy world, the phrase "I don't have time to..." has become a universal complaint. Like a growing plant, any relationship between two people can thrive only if it receives care. While a plant often needs a complicated solution to grow, most human relationships profit from a simple tonic that is called "tincture of time." A chatty phone call to an unhappy friend, or a half-hour visit to an aunt who lives alone can mean a lot, but cost very little.
THE GIFT OF GOOD EXAMPLE. Most people learn fundamental attitudes and behavior by observing others. Be a good example by handling difficult situations in a mature manner.
THE GIFT OF ACCEPTANCE. Many problems between husband and wife or between friends begin when one person tries to change the other to fit preconceived notions. But did you know that people begin to shed bad habits once they are accepted the way they are?
THE GIFT OF SEEING THE BEST IN PEOPLE. When we expect people to respond in a positive way, they usually do. But you must let those you love know that you expect the positive.
THE GIFT OF GIVING UP A BAD HABIT. All of us have habits that annoy those we love. What a great gift it would be if you could give up an unhappy or unhealthy habit. Breaking a habit can be a lonely task, but whatever the habit you choose to break, the people who love you will be there when you need help.
THE GIFT OF TEACHING. Helping someone you love learn something new is an important investment in their future happiness. Only by learning new skills can we become fully alive. Sharing our talents with others is a good way to show our love.
THE GIFT OF LISTENING. Few of us know how to listen effectively. Too often we interrupt or act disinterested when someone else is talking. In an effort to be noticed, we begin to tell our own stories before the other person has finished.
THE GIFT OF FUN. There are people who "wet blanket" the happiness of those around them, while others lead people into finding fun in ordinary events.
THE GIFT OF LETTING OTHERS GIVE. Insecurity causes some people to insist on being the giver rather than the receiver. When we let others give to us, and when we accept their gifts in a gracious manner, we may be giving them one of the most important gifts of all. Remember, the joy you feel in giving is felt by others as well.
THE GIFT OF PRIVACY. Too often we tend to smother those we love with questions and demands on their time. Each of us has a need for companionship and a need for privacy. Relinquish some of your natural curiosity occasionally and give those you love the right to private thoughts and unshared feelings.
THE GIFT OF SELF-ESTEEM. It's hard to resist the temptation to give unwanted or unnecessary advice and help to those we love. Such advice may unwittingly cripple a person's self-esteem. A Chinese proverb proclaims, "There's nothing more blessed on earth than a mother--but there's nothing more blessed in Heaven than a mother who knows when to let go of the hand."
THE GIFT OF SELF-DISCLOSURE. Most relationships either grow and expand, or be come stale and decline. Self disclosure letting someone else discover more about you--can turn a wilting relationship into a flourishing one. It can also help sustain an already healthy friendship or marriage. Bottling up feelings, resentments and hopes is not only unhealthy; it also deprives others of truly knowing who you are.
The True Meaning of Christmas
by Gordon B. Hinckley
At this Christmas season, may I share a few thoughts concerning him whose birth we commemorate--the Man of Miracles, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Although he healed the sick, raised the dead, caused the lame to walk and the blind to see, there is no miracle comparable to the miracle of Christ himself.
We live in a world of pomp and muscle, of strutting that glorifies jet thrust and far-flying warheads. It is the same kind of strutting that produced the misery of the days of Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, and Hitler. In this kind of world it is not easy to recognize that...
a babe born in a stable of the village of Bethlehem, a boy reared as a carpenter of Nazareth,
a citizen of a conquered and subdued nation,
a man whose mortal footsteps never went beyond a radius of 150 miles, who never received a school degree, who never spoke from a great pulpit, who never owned a home, who traveled afoot and without purse Is actually the creator of heaven and earth and all that in them are.
Neither is it easy for many to recognize...
that he is the author of our salvation and his the only name whereby we must be saved;
that he would bring light and understanding of things eternal and divine as none other has ever done;
that his teachings not only would influence the personal behavior of uncounted millions, but also would inspire political systems which dignify and protect the individual, and social truths which foster education and culture;
that his matchless example would become the greatest power for goodness and peace in all the world. Truly, his coming, ministry, and place in our eyes are as foretold by the ancient prophet Isaiah: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6).
I ask anew the question offered by Pilate two thousand years ago, "What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?" (Matthew 27:22.) Indeed, we need continually to ask ourselves, What shall we do with Jesus who is called Christ? What shall we do with his teachings, and how can we make them an inseparable part of our lives? In light of these questions, at this season we ask another: What does Christmas really mean? May I suggest some things that it should mean?
Christmas means giving. The Father gave his Son, and the Son gave his life. Without giving there is no true Christmas, and without sacrifice there is no true worship. There is more to Christmas than neckties, earrings, toys, and all the tinseled stuff of which we make so much.
I recall an experience I heard at a stake conference in Idaho. A farm family in the community had just contracted for the installation of an additional and much-needed room on their home. Three or four days later the father came to the building supply dealer and said, "Will it be all right with you if we cancel the contract? The bishop talked with John about a mission last night. We will need to set this room aside for a while." The building supply dealer responded, "Your son will go on his mission, and he will find the needed room when he returns." Here was the spirit of Christmas--a family sending a boy into the world to teach the gospel, and friends coming to help the family with their problems. What then, indeed, shall we do with Jesus who is called Christ?
Christmas means giving and "the gift without the giver is bare." Giving of self; giving of substance; giving of heart and mind and strength in assisting those in need and in spreading the cause of His eternal truth--these are of the very essence of the true spirit of Christmas.
Christmas means the Christ child, the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger while angels sang and wise men traveled far to bring gifts. It is a beautiful and timeless story, and I hope each of us will read it again this season.
When I think of the Savior, I think not only of the words of Matthew and Luke, but also of the words of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men." (John 1:1-4.)
Here is something more than a babe in a manger; here is the creator of all that is good and beautiful. I have looked at majestic mountains rising high against the blue sky and thought of Jesus, the creator of heaven and earth. I have stood on the sand of an island in the Pacific and watched the dawn rise like thunder--a ball of gold surrounded by clouds of pink and white and purple--and thought of Jesus, the Word by whom all things were made and without whom was not anything made that was made. I have seen a beautiful child--bright-eyed, innocent, loving, and trusting--and marveled at the majesty and miracle of creation. What then shall we do with Jesus who is called Christ?
This earth is his creation. When we make it ugly, we of- fend him. When we abuse his works, we abuse him.
Christmas means eternity. As certainly as Christ came into the world, lived among men, laid down his life, and became the first fruits of the resurrection, so, through that atonement, all become partakers of immortality. Death will come, but death has been robbed of its sting, and the grave of its victory. "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" (John 11:25-26).
I remember standing before the bier of a young man whose life had been bright with hope and promise. He had been an athlete in his high school, and an excellent university student. He was a friendly, affable, brilliant young man. He had gone into the mission field. He and his companion were riding down the highway when a car, coming from the opposite direction, moved into their lane and crashed into them. He died in the hospital an hour later. As I stood at the pulpit and looked into the faces of his father and his mother, there came into my heart a conviction that I had seldom before felt with such assurance. I knew with certainty, as I looked across that casket, that this young man had not died, but had merely been transferred to another field of labor in the eternal ministry of the Lord.
Indeed, what shall one do with Jesus who is called Christ? Let us live with the certain knowledge that someday "we shall be brought to stand before God, knowing even as we know now, and have a bright recollection of all our guilt" (Alma 11:43). Let us live today knowing that we shall live forever. Let us live with the conviction that whatever principle of intelligence and beauty and truth and goodness we make a part of our lives here, it will rise with us in the resurrection.
Christmas means compassion and love and, most of all, for- giveness. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). How poor indeed would be our lives without the influence of his teachings and his matchless example! The lessons of the turning of the other cheek, going the second mile, the return of the prodigal, and scores of other incomparable teachings have filtered down the ages to become the catalyst to bring kindness and mercy out of much of man's inhumanity to man.
Brutality reigns where Christ is banished. Kindness and forbearance govern where Christ is recognized and his teachings are followed.
What shall we do then with Jesus who is called Christ? "He hath shewed thee, 0 man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Micah 6:8.)
"Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin" (D&C 64:9).
Christmas means peace. I remember being in Europe a number of years ago at the time tanks were rolling down the streets of a great city and students were being slaughtered with machine-gun fire. I stood that December day in the rail road station in Bern, Switzerland, At eleven o'clock in the morning, every church bell in Switzerland began to ring, and at the conclusion of that ringing every vehicle stopped-- every car on the highway, every bus, every railroad train. The great, cavernous railway station became deathly still. I looked out of the front door across the plaza. Men working on the hotel opposite stood on the scaffolding with bared heads. Every bicycle stopped. Every man and woman and child dismounted and stood with bared, bowed heads. Then, after three minutes of prayerful silence, trucks, great convoys of them, began to roll from Geneva and Bern and Basel and Zurich toward the suffering nation to the cast, laden with supplies--food, clothing, and medicine. The gates of Switzerland were thrown open to refugees.
As I stood there that December morning, I marveled at the miraculous contrast of the oppressive power mowing down students in one nation and the spirit of a Christian people in another who bowed their heads in prayer and reverence, then rolled up their sleeves to provide succor and salvation
What shall we do then with Jesus which is called Christ? "For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me" (Matthew 25:35-36).
He whose birth we commemorate this season is more than the symbol of a holiday. He is the Son of God. The creator of the earth, the Jehovah of the Old Testament, the fulfillment of the law of Moses, the Redeemer of mankind, the King of kings, the Prince of Peace.
I thank our Eternal Father that mankind in these latter days has been blessed to know of Christ with added certainty and added knowledge. I rejoice with thanksgiving that he has reaffirmed his matchless gospel truths in their fulness, and that he has restored his priesthood power and church to prepare a people and make ready for his eventual coming in great glory and power in the opening of the millennial era.
I rejoice at Christmastime that as a people, we Latter-day Saints know of his existence and reality, and receive certain direction from him.
"And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!
"For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father--
"That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God." (D&C 76:22-24.)
This is our testimony to all mankind. It is our gift and blessing to the world. He is our joy and our salvation, and we will find Christmas of greater meaning in our own lives as we share these truths with others.
What shall we do with Jesus who is called Christ?
Learn of him. Search the scriptures, for they are they which testify of him. Ponder the miracle of his life and mission. Try a little more diligently to follow his example and observe his teachings. Bring the Christ back into Christmas.
Rediscovering the Christmas Spirit
by Barbara Werrett Nielsen
'Twas the season, and as Ann shuffled her list of "Things to do Wednesday," "Things to do Thursday," and "Things that should have been done yesterday," she wondered, "'Tis the season for what? For tired feet, volumes of extra work, and myriads of things to remember!"
She knew she had lost control of her "season" when she found herself the night before screaming down to the children in the living room, "And don't touch those packages, or I'll blister your bottoms 'til you look like a Solarcaine ad!" It had sounded so funny to nine-year-old Cindy, but she hadn't dared to laugh after taking one look at her mother's face.
Ann returned for the nineteenth time to her cookie-making. "I hate to make cookies at nine o'clock at night!" she thought, miserably, as she tried to erase thoughts of her comfortable bed from her mind. Bart had come in from school and announced that he needed twenty-four cookies for kindergarten. She had made a mental note. But mental notes don't taste very good, so after the children were all fed and bathed and their daddy (lucky man) had escaped to a meeting, Ann had tackled the cookies--and had told herself that if she really "got into it," she would enjoy it.
She had not enjoyed it. Just as she was about to drop the dough onto the cookie sheet, Angela had announced that she, too, would sure like to take cookies to her preschool Christmas party, and Ann had suddenly remembered the note asking mothers to help with the refreshments. She sighed, and removed all the ingredients once more from the cupboards so she could double the batch. At the precise moment that she slid the last tray of cookies into the oven, first-grader Jed had announced that he was supposed to take two dozen cookies to school in the morning. "That was the moment," Ann thought, clenching her teeth, "the precise moment that I lost the Christmas spirit!"
On the counter in Ann's kitchen were another unread newspaper, two issues of the Church News (she felt it a sin of omission not to read at least the back page), a pair of shoelaces that had to be threaded into Rhett's shoes before he outgrew them, and four Christmas cards that had arrived that day (the very day she had finished mailing out her Christmas cards). She jotted down on her list of "Things to do on Wednesday" to mail out four more Christmas cards.
Why is it, she mused, that just as you finish mailing out Christmas cards, you get a handful in the mail--all from people you forgot to send cards to? The same thing happens on neighborhood treats, she remembered- -you no sooner bake a Christmas pie for all the neighbors than three more families have the audacity to move in to the neighborhood!
Ann's life seemed mirrored in the pile of "Things To Do" she had growing on her counter. There was the list of fourteen new Primary children, all of whom she personally needed to welcome to Primary. And that reminded her of the sixty-two miniature nativity scenes she had cut out, but not yet assembled, for her Primary children.
"Birthdays should be outlawed in December!" she grumbled, wrapping a gift for her six-year-old's friend's party. "But," she mused with a tired smile, "I guess that would eliminate two of my children, and that's not such a good idea."
She had a play to finish writing for the Warner family party, a half- decorated Christmas broom for her aging grandmother, and twenty-four separate doll clothes cut out for her daughters' four dolls. (And Rhett had just asked her to make his Gremlin a pair of levis. "I must look like Betsy Ross!" she had wailed.)
The days sped by, and Ann's pile of "Things To Do" grew on her counter at a frightening rate. "I wish Fisher-Price toys proliferated like this mess on my counter!" she had cried out in a moment of utter frustration. Nine-year-old Cindy left the room, hiding a giggle behind her hand.
Finally, there came a day, very close to Christmas, that the pile on the counter began to disappear. Ann had finished up all the millions of details that seemed to sap her of her Christmas spirit. The birthday parties had been attended, and each child had left happy--present under arm, confident that they had mattered enough for their mother to supply the gift, brush the hair, throw the gum away, and get them there, somehow, on time. The party announcements could be thrown away!
The message from the Relief Society president about the Hansen family had been attended to--Ann had taken over a casserole and a box of toys. She threw the message away. She threw away the tickets to the ball game she and her husband had missed because of the caroling party they had attended instead. They had caroled at the old folks' home on Spencer Street. A note she had written in red magic marker and hung on the kitchen counter for months--WRITE YOUR MISSIONARIES!--was thrown in the bathroom garbage on her way out to the mailbox with their Happy New Year cards. "Better late than never," she thought, glad to have finally accomplished that task.
Little by little, task by task, Ann had waded through her "Things To Do" pile on the kitchen counter--and it was now three a.m. on Christmas morning. She had tossed and turned for two hours, too tired to sleep, and had finally decided to investigate the strange light emitting from the living room. As she came down the hall, she realized the light came from the Christmas tree.
"Utah Power and Light Company thanks you once again, children," she mumbled, bending to pull the plug on the glowing balls of red and green. But just then she decided she might as well sit and enjoy the tree rather than toss and turn in bed. She noticed the power switch to the stereo had also been left on, and she decided to treat herself, at long last, to some of her favorite Christmas songs. She chose Handel's "Messiah." As the sweet words "for unto us a child is born, unto us a child is given" reached the corners of her tender heart, great tears welled up in her eyes.
"I'm afraid I haven't taken much time to think about the real meaning of Christmas," she mumbled apologetically. But then, a thousand images crowded into her mind. She saw her little children with presents tucked under their arms, happily skipping to their neighbors' birthday parties. She saw her grandmother's smile as she received the broom Ann had made-- and she remembered the aged fingers happily placing the broom on the front door to welcome her holiday guests, perhaps for her last Christmas.
Ann smiled as she remembered the amateurish production of her family play, and the giggles of the wise men and the awkward announcement of the three-year-old innkeeper, saying, "There is no room in this inn." And she remembered how her father-in-law had put his arm around her waist and thanked her for taking the time to write them a play.
She remembered how proud her children had been to take her cookies to school--baked, under duress, at nine p.m. She thought with anticipation how each of her little girls would love those soft, fluffy new doll clothes when they opened their gifts in just a few short hours--and she was glad, so glad, she had taken the time to make them. She re-read a Christmas card, sent from a friend who had long ago lost her address: "Dear Ann and Kenneth, Thank you so much for writing to us! We think of you often. Isn't Christmas a wonderful time of year!" She thought of all her neighbors, whom she rarely saw in the wintertime, and how they had welcomed her as she came bearing pies; she remembered the warmth of their friendship, and the feeling that welled up inside of her because she had taken the time to reach out.
She let her mind wander to the far-off countries where each missionary in her ward labored--and where each would, in the next few weeks, receive her cheerful New Year's cards. She hoped that when her own sons served missions, others would take the time to cheer them, too.
She lingered on the remembered faces of those dear elderly people she and her husband had caroled to on Spencer Street. One woman had clasped her hand and whispered, "You remind me so of my daughter. It's been like having her back for a time, just to watch you sing." Her mind raced back to the Hansen home, and how she and her next-door neighbor had cleaned up the house, delivered the casserole, and distributed the toys to the excited children. "I wish I had bought them better toys," she sighed.
The music enveloped her, and she pushed her head back, far into the cushion of the couch. "I don't think I have ever just relaxed on this couch," she thought, as her eyes surveyed the pleasant room that was hers to clean, entertain in, have family home evening in, but never relax in. Then her eyes rested on a homemade envelope, addressed to "The Best Mommy in the World." Inside was a coupon in third-grade cursive writing: "Good for one day of tending the baby, so you won't have to be so busy. Love, Cindy."
Her record on the stereo had reached the "Hallelujah Chorus," and with tears dropping from joyful eyes, Ann held the coupon to her cheek and thought of the sixty-two nativity scenes she had made for each Primary child. The love and contentment of the Spirit of Christ entered her heart.
"Oh, Lord," she said aloud. "I was afraid I had lost the spirit of Christmas. But I didn't lose it. It was there all the time, in the pile of things to do on my kitchen counter. It was there all the time! just didn't have time to notice it until now."
You can probably find more stories like these and other Christmas fun at the Osmonds' Christmas website.