Paul received an automobile from his brother as a Christmas present. On Christmas Eve when Paul came out of his office, a street urchin was walking around the shiny new car, admiring it.
“Is this your car, Mister?” he asked.
Paul nodded. “My brother gave it to me for Christmas.” The boy was astounded. “You mean your brother gave it to you and it didn’t cost you nothing? Boy, I wish…” He hesitated. Of course Paul knew what he was going to wish for. He was going to wish he had a brother like that. But what the lad said jarred Paul all the way down to his heels.
“I wish,” the boy went on, “that I could be a brother like that.”
Paul looked at the boy in astonishment, then impulsively he added, “Would you like to take a ride in my automobile?”
“Oh yes, I’d love that.”
After a short ride, the boy turned and with his eyes aglow, said, “Mister, would you mind driving in front of my house?” Paul smiled a little. He thought he knew what the lad wanted. He wanted to show his neighbors that he could ride home in a big automobile. But Paul was wrong again.
“Will you stop where those two steps are?” the boy asked. He ran up the steps. Then in a little while Paul heard him coming back, but he was not coming fast. He was carrying his little crippled brother. He sat him down on the bottom step, then sort of squeezed up against him and pointed to the car. “There she is, Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him for Christmas and it didn’t cost him a cent. And some day I’m gonna give you one just like it…then you can see for yourself all the pretty things in the Christmas windows that I’ve been trying to tell you about.”
Paul got out and lifted the lad to the front seat of his car. The shining-eyed older brother climbed in beside him and the three of them began a memorable holiday ride.
“It is more blessed to give” —that Christmas Eve Paul learned what that phrase meant…
~Author Unknown
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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Suddenly in the still of the freezing night on Christmas Eve in the trenches in Flanders fields in 1914, a young German voice began singing, “Stille Nacht [Silent Night].”
Soon, one by one, each German voice joined in harmony. As soon as they were finished there was a reverent pause.
Then from across the trenches a young English soldier sang out loud and clear, “God Rest ye merry Gentlemen” and the other English soldiers sang in harmony. Then both sides sang “Silent Night” together in the two different languages.
After a considerable pause the lone figure of a young German walked out between the trenches into No Man’s Land.
Then the soldiers on both sides slowly walked out to join him. They shook hands, hugged and traded chocolates, cigarettes, photographs, scotch and cognac. The Christmas carols resounded throughout the frozen fields of Flanders. Soon daylight was upon them and with sad farewells they returned to the trenches to continue the fighting.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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On Christmas Eve,
a young boy with light in his eyes,
Looked deep into Santa’s, to Santa’s surprise,
And said as he nestled on Santa’s broad knee,
“I want your secret, tell it to me.”
He leaned up & whispered in Santa’s good ear,
“How do you do it, year after year?”
“I want to know how, as you travel about,
Giving gifts here & there, you never run out.
How is it, dear Santa, that in your pack of toys,
You have plenty for all of the world’s girls & boys?
Stays so full, never empties as you make your way
From rooftop to rooftop, to homes large & small,
From nation to nation, reaching them all?
And Santa smiled kindly & said to the boy,
“Don’t ask me hard questions.
Don’t you want a toy?”
But the child shook his head, and Santa could see
That he needed the answer. “Now listen to me,”
He told the small boy with the light in his eyes,
“My secret will make you sadder & wise.
“The truth is that my sack is magic. Inside
It holds millions of toys for my Christmas Eve ride.
But although I do visit each girl & each boy
I don’t always leave them a gaily wrapped toy.
Some homes are hungry, some homes are sad.
Some homes are desperate, some homes are bad.
Some homes are broken, & children there grieve.
Those homes I visit, but what should I leave?
“My sleigh is filled with the happiest stuff,
But for homes where despair lives,
toys aren’t enough.
So I tiptoe in, kiss each girl & boy,
And pray with them that they’ll be given the joy
Of the spirit of Christmas, the spirit that lives
In the heart of the dear child who gets not,
but gives.
If only God hears me & answers my prayer,
When I visit next year, what I will find there
Are homes filled with peace,
and with giving, and love
And boys and girls gifted with light from above.
It’s a very had task, my smart little brother,
To give toys to some,
and to give prayers to others.
But the prayers are the best gifts,
the best gifts indeed,
For God has a way of meeting each need.
“That’s part of the answer.
The rest, my dear youth,
Is that my sack is magic, And that is the truth.
In my sack I carry on Christmas Eve day
More love than a Santa could e’er give away.
The sack never empties of love, or of joys
‘Cause inside it are prayers, and hopes.
Not just toys.
The more that I give, the fuller it seems,
Because giving is my way of fulfilling dreams.
“And do you know something?
You’ve got a sack, too.
It’s as magic as mine, and it’s inside of you.
It never gets empty, it’s full from the start.
It’s the centre of lights, and of love. It’s your heart.
And if on this Christmas you want to help me,
Don’t be so concerned with your gifts
‘neath your tree.
Open that sack, call your heart, & share
Your joy, your friendship, your wealth, your care.”
The light in the small boy’s eyes was glowing.
“Thanks for the secret. I’ve got to be going.”
“Wait, little boy,” said Santa “don’t go.
Will you share? Will you help?
Will you use what you know?”
And just for a moment the small boy stood still,
Touched his heart with his small hand & whispered,
“I will.”
~Author Unknown
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.
~Dr. Seuss
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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Some years ago there lived in an English city a man whom I shall call Fred Armstrong. He worked in the local post office, where he was called ‘dead-letter man’ because he handled missives whose addresses were faulty or hard to read. He lived in an old house with his little wife and even smaller daughter and tiny son.
After supper he liked to sit in his easy chair and tell his children of his latest exploits in delivering lost letters. He considered himself quite a detective. There was no cloud on his modest horizon. No cloud —- until one sunny morning when his little boy suddenly fell ill. Within 48 hours the child was dead.
In his sorrow, Fred Armstrong’s soul seemed to die. The mother and their little daughter, Marian, struggled to control their grief, determined to make the best of it. Not so with the father. His life was now a dead letter with no direction.
In the morning, Fred rose from his bed and went to work like a sleep walker. He never spoke unless spoken to and he ate his lunch alone. He sat like a statue at the supper table and went to bed early. Yet, his wife knew that he lay most of the night with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling. As the months passed, his apathy seemed to deepen. His wife told him that such despair was unfair to their lost son and unfair to the living.
But nothing that she said seemed to reach him.
It was coming close upon Christmas. One bleak afternoon at work Fred sat on his high stool and moved a new pile of letters under the electric lamp. On the top of the stack was an envelope that was clearly undeliverable. In crude block letters were penciled the words: SANTA CLAUS NORTH POLE — Fred started to throw it away, when some impulse made him pause. He opened the letter and read:
“Dear Santa Claus,
We are very sad in our house this year, and I don’t want you to bring me anything. My little brother went to heaven last spring. All I want you to do when you come to our house is to take Brother’s toys to him. I’ll leave them in the corner by the kitchen stove—his hobbyhorse and train and everything. I know he’ll be lost up in heaven without them…most of all his horse. He always liked riding it so much. So you must take them to him, please. And, you needn’t mind leaving me anything. But, if you could give Daddy something that would make him like he used to be, and make him tell me stories, I do wish you would. I heard him say to Mommy once that only Eternity could cure him. Could you bring him some of that and I will be your good little girl.
Love,
Marian”
That night Fred walked home at a faster gait. In the winter darkness he stood in the dooryard garden for just a moment. Then, he opened the kitchen door. He hugged his wife and asked his little daughter if she was ready to hear a story.
~Author Unknown~
Melanie Hack
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Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.
~Charles Schulz
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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My daughter Tamiko had been busy in school, excited with Christmas coming. All’s Tamiko could do is talk about Santa and what she would like to get everyone.
Today, Miko, my 7-year-old daughter brought home the gifts she bought at school…
Busy as usual during the 5 to 7 o’clock hours, we didn’t catch what she had done until a little later, but we could remember her laughter and telling us not to come into the living room because she was wrapping Christmas presents.
Later I went into the living room to see what she had put below the Christmas tree I saw presents to her Mommy and Daddy I smiled and started to walk away, I noticed another gift sitting on the entertainment center next to a picture. I walked away with tears in my eyes and told my husband to come here and look at what she had done.
My daughter had given her Grandmother (Tutu) a Christmas present.
The only thing is…her Grandmother passed away about 4 weeks ago.
~Carla Fodor
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the school
Not a pupil was silent, no matter what rule.
The children were busy with paper and paste;
The mess that they made with it couldn’t be faced.
The teacher half frantic and almost in tears,
Had just settled down to work with her dears,
When out in the hall there arose such a clatter
up sprang the kids to see what was the matter!
Away to the door they all flew like a flash;
The one who was leading went down with a crash.
Then what to their wondering eyes did appear
But a green Christmas tree! (To decorate I fear!)
When the teacher saw this, she almost grew sick.
She knew in a moment it must be Old Nick!
She ran to the door (all her efforts were vain)
But she shouted, and stamped, and she called them by name;
“Now Tommy! Now Sandy, Now Judy and Harry!
Stop Billy! Stop Robert! Stop Donny and Sherry!
Now get to your places get away from the hall
Now get away! Get away! Get away all!
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly
The pupils, pell mell, started scurrying by.
They ran to the blackboard and skipped down the aisle;
Their faces were shining and each had a smile.
First came a basket of popcorn to string
Then came the Christmas tree (menacing thing).
As the tree was brought in there arose a great shout;
The pupils were merrily romping about.
The state they were in could lead to a riot;
The teacher was sure, if allowed, they would try it.
Her nerves how they jangled! Her temples were throbbing!
The rush of her breath sounded almost like sobbing!
The lines of her face were as fixed as a mask;
It was plain that she didn’t feel up to her task.
The look in her eye would have tamed a wild steer,
But the children ignored it; they did every year.
A tear from her eye and a shake of her head
Soon led me to think that she wished she were dead.
She spoke not a word but went straight to her work,
Strung all the popcorn which broke with a jerk.
But at last it was finished and placed on the tree;
Then came the bell and the children were free.
Their shrill little voices soon faded away
And peace was restored at the end of the day.
As she looked at the Christmas tree glistening and tall,
She smiled as she whispered, “Merry Christmas to all!”
~ By Joyce Luke ~
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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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- 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; and shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church, mostly black. 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 dreaded 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.
~Author unknown
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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I have always thought of Christmastime, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.
~Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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