Christmas Living and Christmas Giving - Henry Van Dyke

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Christmas Giving and Christmas Living by Henry van dyck One.
The custom of exchanging presence on a certain day in
the year is very much older than Christmas, and means
very much less. It has obtained in almost all ages
of the world, and among many different nations. It is

(00:22):
a fine thing or a foolish thing, as the case
may be, an encouragement to friendliness or attribute to fashion,
an expression of good nature or a bid for favor,
an outgoing of generosity or a disguise of greed, a
cheerful old custom, or a futile old farce, according to

(00:43):
the spirit which animates it and the form which it takes.
But when this ancient and variously interpreted tradition of a
day of gifts was transferred to the Christmas season, it
was brought into vital contact with an idea which must
transform it, and with an example which must lift it

(01:03):
up to a higher plane. The example is the life
of Jesus. The idea is unselfish interest in the happiness
of others. The great gift of Jesus to the world
was himself, he lived with and four men. He kept
back nothing in every particular and personal gift that he

(01:24):
made to certain people, there was something of himself that
made it precious. For example, at the wedding in Cana
of Galilee, it was his thought for the feelings of
the giver of the feast, and his wish that every
guest should find due entertainment that lent the flavor of
a heavenly hospitality to the wine which he provided. When

(01:46):
he gave bread and fish to the hungry multitude who
had followed him out among the hills by the lake
of Gensia, the people were refreshed and strengthened by the
sense of the personal care of Jesus for their welfare,
as much as by the food which he bestowed upon them.
It was another illustration of the sweetness of a dinner

(02:07):
of herbs where love is. The gifts of healing which
he conferred among many different kinds of sufferers were in
every case evidences that Jesus was willing to give something
of himself, his thought, his sympathy, his vital power to
the men and women among whom he lived. Once, when

(02:30):
a paralytic was brought to Jesus on a bed, he
surprised everybody and offended many by giving the poor wretch
the pardon of his sins before he gave new life
to his body. That was just because Jesus thought before
he gave, because he desired to satisfy the deepest need,

(02:50):
because in fact, he gave something of himself in every gift.
All true Christmas giving ought to be after this pattern.
It must be all solemn and serious. For the most part,
it deals with little wants, little joys, little tokens of
friendly feeling. But the feeling must be more than the token,

(03:11):
else the gift does not really belong to Christmas. It
takes time and effort and unselfish expenditure of strength to
make gifts in this way, but it is the only
way that fits the season. The finest Christmas gift is
not the one that costs the most money, but the
one that carries the most love. Two. But how seldom

(03:35):
Christmas comes only once a year, and how soon it
is over a night and a day. If that is
the whole of it, it seems not much more durable
than the little toys that one buys of a fakir
on the street corner. They run for an hour, and
then the spring breaks and the legs come off, and

(03:55):
nothing remains but a contribution to the dust heap. But
surely that need not and ought not to be the
whole of Christmas. Only a single day of generosity ransomed
from the dull servitude of a selfish year, only a
single night of merrymaking celebrated in the slave quarters of
a selfish race. If every gift is the token of

(04:18):
a personal thought, a friendly feeling, an unselfish interest in
the joy of others, then the thought, the feeling, the
interest may remain after the gift is made. The little
present or the rare and long wished for gift. It
matters not whether the vessel be of gold or silver,

(04:39):
or iron, or wood or clay, or just a small
bit of birch bark folded into a cup. May carry
a message something like this, I am thinking of you
today because it is Christmas, and I wish you happiness.
And tomorrow, because it will be the day after Christmas,
I shall still wish you happiness, and so on clear

(05:01):
through the year. I may not be able to tell
you about it every day because I may be far away,
or because both of us may be very busy, or
perhaps because I cannot even afford to pay the postage
on so many letters or find the time to write them,
but that makes no difference. The thought and the wish

(05:21):
will be here just the same in my work and
in the business of life. I mean to try not
to be unfair to you or injure you in any way.
In my pleasure. If we can be together, I would
like to share the fun with you. Whatever joy or
success comes to you will make me glad without pretense,

(05:41):
and in plain words, goodwill to you is what I
mean in the spirit of Christmas. It is not necessary
to put a message like this into high flown language
to swear absolute devotion and deathless consecration in love and friendship,
small steady payment on a gold basis are better than

(06:02):
immense promisory notes. Nor indeed, is it always necessary to
put the message into words at all, nor even to
convey it by a tangible token. To feel it and
to act it out, that is the main thing. There
are a great many people in the world whom we
know more or less, but to whom, for various reasons,

(06:24):
we cannot very well send a Christmas gift. But there
is hardly one in all the circles of our acquaintance
with whom we may not exchange the touch of Christmas
life in the outer circles, cheerful greetings, courtesy consideration in
the inner circles, sympathetic interest, hearty congratulations, honest encouragement in

(06:48):
the inmost circle, comradeship, helpfulness, tenderness, beautiful friendship tried by
sun and wind, durable from the daily dust of life.
After all, Christmas living is the best kind of Christmas giving.
End of Christmas Giving and Christmas Living by Henry van

(07:09):
Dyck