Grace and peace, Saints.
Well, another Christmas is upon us, and, again, millions of people will be spending money they don’t have to buy presents they can’t afford for people who neither appreciate nor need them. The line between the haves and the have nots will become broader and bolder, and people everywhere will remember why they always hated Christmas. Arguably, no other time reminds people just how poor they really are like Christmastime.
I can remember when I first came back to Germany, after getting out of the military, back in December, 1998, about a month before Christmas and about a week before the birth of my middle daughter. My then girlfriend, who is now my wife, and I had gone to the shopping mall to “window shop.” The mall was teaming with cheery people and screaming children, and the smell of cookies, cakes, and pies, and other baked goods filled the air. I was more grateful about being reunited with my girlfriend than I was about the approaching Christmas season, because she and I had been separated for about six months prior to this. As we walked hand in hand, perusing all the beautifully decorated confectionaries and bakeries with all their cakes, chocolates, pies, and cookies on display for all to see, it suddenly dawned on me that as beautiful as all of this was, none of it was free. Everything these stores had to offer cost money. And if you didn’t have the money to buy any of these things, then you were out of luck.
That was my situation: my wife and I were flat broke. And the better the food smelled, the more beautiful and sparklier the decorations were, and the happier the people looked, the broker I felt. And the fact that my wife was with me did not help matters at all. In fact, it made things worse.
My wife used to be a very cheap date. She just didn’t ask for much. But one thing she has always loved is roasted walnuts. And the time my wife most loves roasted walnuts is during the Christmas season. Now, roasted walnuts are always available somewhere in Munich year-round, but during the Christmas season, roasted walnuts are prolific. Everywhere you turn, there is someone selling roasted walnuts. Everywhere you walk, there are bags of roasted walnuts somewhere on display. And every five minutes, you are bumping into someone eating roasted walnuts. At Christmastime, roasted walnuts are literally everywhere.
So you can probably appreciate my chagrin as we passed store after store, confectionary after confectionary, and nut stand after nut stand, while the smell of roasted walnuts wafted through the air. But the only thing I have in my pockets is lint. Again, my wife used to be a cheap date, and she would understand if I didn’t have the money to get her what she wanted. She well understood, however, that she was a cheap date. And she knew that as a woman, she deserved a lot more than I could offer her. So, when my wife wanted roasted walnuts, she got roasted walnuts.
That day, however, there was absolutely nothing I could do. I was flat broke. So broke, in fact, that I couldn’t even pay attention. So broke, that if it weren’t for the lint in my pockets, they would have been completely empty. So broke, that if I had passed one of those Santa Clauses on the street corner ringing his bell asking for donations, he might have had a problem. Yes, I was that broke. And that wan “That’s OK baby” smile on my wife’s face didn’t help matters at all.
All this came back to me a couple of weeks ago, when I went to the mall and saw all the beautiful decorations, nativity scenes, and all the candy and baked good vendors situated in the center of the mall thoroughfare. And again this week, as I watched a news story on “Christmas stress,