Three Christmas Wishes

As a child, I used to wish to receive toys as Christmas presents (I was naturally disappointed to find that some gifts were clothes). I remember sneaking into the living room after midnight when everyone else was asleep and sneaking a peek at the presents under the tree (which remained lit all night long on only that special night). Sitting near the heater vent, I imagined what could be in those wrapped packages and which ones might be for me. I usually crept back to my bed where I tossed and turned until dawn and the time came when the rest of the family arose.

As I have grown older, my Christmas wishes have changed. There was a time when I wished that school was finally finished and I would have enough money of my own to buy presents for my parents and siblings. Later there were the Christmases when I wished that I would not have to be at work, and then there were the Christmases when I hoped my own children would sense the same anticipation that I felt of Santa Claus' arrival, and that they would experience the same thrill of finding Santa's footprints by the fireplace and presents under the tree.

Now I am just thankful to be present for another Christmas, and my only wish is for you, my dear readers, to have a blessed Christmas and to praise God for his gift of a Saviour to you and to me.

CS Lewis once wrote of three Christmas wishes which offer a good correction to us when we dare to ask for too much on this day,

THE NATIVITY  C.S. Lewis, Poems, edited by Walter Hooper (New York:  Harcourt Inc., 1992), p. 122.

Among the oxen (like an ox I'm slow)
see a glory in the stable grow
Which, with the ox's dullness might at length
Give me an ox's strength.
Among the asses (stubborn I as they)
I see my Saviour where I looked for hay;
So may my beastlike folly learn at least
The patience of a beast.
Among the sheep (I like a sheep have strayed)
I watch the manger where my Lord is laid;
Oh that my baa-ing nature would win thence
Some woolly innocence!

Thanks be to God!