Gifts Of Love

Tuesday I looked forward to an outing with my youngest daughter but that fell through and while I was casting around for alternative plans, I half-listened to a local radio station.

Apparently the disk jockeys had asked people to call the station to tell about the worst Christmas gifts they had received. One caller told about a six-pack roll of paper towels attached to a subtle note about cleaning her kitchen. Another caller said a co-worker gave her a statue of copulating frogs.

Now remember, I was making phone calls and such with the radio providing background noise, so I can’t remember the exact words, but one lady’s voice caught my attention and her conversation went something like this:

“The worst Christmas gift wasn’t something I received,” she said, “But something I gave”.

“What was that?” the announcer asked.

“I gave my husband a 55-pound anvil”.

“A 55-pound anvil”?

The lady said that she asked her husband what he wanted for Christmas and he circled a number of things he’d like to have in the Home Depot catalog.

She browsed through the catalog perusing the things he had circled and decided to buy him an anvil.

As anyone who has been married a long time knows, there is no telling why your spouse wants anything and it’s best not to ask because you won’t understand why they want it even when they explain (Case in point, why Ginny once wanted a paper shredder for our wedding anniversary!).

So the radio lady drove to Home Depot, bought a 55-pound anvil. She had a store employee put it in the trunk of her car.

At home she found someone to help carry the anvil to the backyard and hide it in the bushes.

On Christmas Eve, she got more help lugging the thing into the living room and putting it under the tree.

Christmas morning her husband saw this anvil and asked, “Why in the world did you get an anvil? What am I supposed to do with that thing?”

“But you had that circled in the Home Depot catalog as something your wanted”!

“I certainly did not! Why would I want an anvil?”

“But you had it circled”.

She brought out the catalog to show him … it seems he had circled his wish list with a felt-tipped pen and when he circled a toolbox on one page, the circle bled through to the anvil on the next page!

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Our kids lavished gifts on us this Christmas.

Jennifer and Pat presented me with some Jesus Of Nazareth chewing gum and tee shirt which says: I Used To Be Schizophrenic But We’re Okay Now.

Eve and Patricia gave me a world globe made of stones from each different country. They also baked scads of cookies and pies for the feast.

Donald gave me a tee shirt picturing Godzilla (as a reminder of my Glog book) and this upgraded computer. On the package containing the tee shirt, he fastened an old artist’s paintbrush from the days when I used it to paint pictures as a street-preaching tool and his card said, “Same Street Preaching – World Wide Canvas”.

This refers, I suppose, to my website which, according to the Webalizer counter software, has drawn 100,898 readers from 85 countries so far this year. That outreach would not have been possible were it not for Donald’s constant help and encouragement all year long.

Ginny and I did not exchange gifts this year. Sometimes we do, sometimes not.

The main thing is that we are on the receiving end of a lot of love.