Lake Neuron

NOTE: This is my first entry in “Blogger Idol,” a non-competitive blogging showcase which challenges bloggers to create an entry on a common weekly theme.

Do you ever wonder whatever happened to the gold?

Through the 1990s, I labored on a perfectly awful Biblical novel, something I really didn’t have the background to do well. (The novel I’m now trying to rewrite is much better, because it’s much closer to home.) The novel was set in the period between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, but Mary the mother of Jesus has a couple of flashbacks while mourning her son.

One such flashback was to the arrival of the Magi — not on Christmas night, as Hallmark Cards would have you believe, but some time later, after Mary and Joseph and their newborn baby had settled in a house. The wise men present the stunned parents with chests full of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

I also had Mary recall the flight into Egypt, and I hinted there that Joseph had to dip into the gold to pay for and support the three of them on their journey.

We have no idea how much gold the Magi are supposed to have given the Christ child — but the assumption seems to be that their gifts were extravagant, fit for a king. And yet, as far as we can make out from the sparse Biblical accounts, Mary and Joseph lived simple lives and raised Jesus and his brothers in a backwater community.

So, what happened to the gold?

Many of our favorite Christmas presents over our lifetime do not turn out to be keepsakes. Especially our childhood presents — chemistry sets which are tried a few times and then abandoned, or needlessly-complex toys that break and can’t be easily repaired, and other trinkets or gadgets so faddish that they are soon forgotten about. Clothes go out of style as well — the shirt or tie or dress that looks so good one year may look silly and be abandoned in the closet (or given to a thrift store) a few years later.

Much of the joy of Christmas comes in the moment of discovery, in that heady experience of opening the present and enjoying it. The excitement is, in some strange way, tied to self-worth: someone, whether Santa Claus or Mom and Dad or your spouse, loved you enough to try to figure out exactly what you wanted and scrimped and saved to make it possible.

Even a bad or awkward gift can be touching in its own way, if you have a clear sense that the giver meant well and tried his or her very best.

I don’t know what to expect for Christmas this year. I am still single at age 42, and it looks like I’ll probably stay that way. So my days of take-your-breath-away Christmas presents are long gone. But it’s still a wonderful experience to open my gifts and see that my parents, siblings, nieces and nephews love me. And it’s still a wonderful experience to find ways to let them know that I love them.

Who can ask for any better Christmas than that?

Blogger Idol Week 1