It was Sunday. Christmas. Our family had spent the holidays in San Francisco with my husband's parents. But in order for us to be back at work on Monday, we found ourselves driving the 400 miles home to Los Angeles on Christmas Day.

It is normally an 8-hour drive, but with kids it can be a 14-hour endurance test. When we could stand it no longer, we stopped for lunch in King City. This little metropolis is made up of six gas stations and three sleazy diners, and it was into one of these diners that the four of us trooped--road weary and saddle sore.

As I sat Erik, our 1-year-old, in a high chair, I looked around the room and wondered, "What am I doing in this place?"

The restaurant was nearly empty. We were the only family and ours were the only children. Everyone else was busy eating, talking quietly, aware perhaps that we were all somehow out of place on this special day, when even the cynical pause to reflect on peace and brotherhood.

My reverie was interrupted when I heard Erik squeal with glee, "Hithere." (Two words he thought were one.) "Hithere" he pounded his fat baby hands--whack, whack--on the metal high chair tray. His face was alive with excitement, eyes wide, gums bared in a toothless grin. He wriggled, and chirped, and giggled, and then I saw the source of the merriment...and my eyes could not take it all in at once.

A tattered rag of a coat--obviously bought by someone else eons ago--dirty, greasy, and worn...baggy pants--both they and the zipper at half-mast over a spindly body--toes that poked out of would-be shoes...a shirt that had ring-around-the-collar all over and a face like none other...gums as bare as Erik's...hair uncombed, unwashed, and unbearable...whiskers too short to be called a beard, but way, way beyond a shadow, and a nose so varicose that it looked like the map of New York.

I was too far away to smell him--but I knew he smelled--and his hands were waving in the air, flapping about on loose wrists.

"Hi there baby; hi there, big boy. I see ya, buster."

My husband and I exchanged a look that was a cross between "What do we do?" and "Poor devil."

Erik continued to laugh and answer, "Hi, Hithere." Every call was echoed.

I noticed waitresses eyebrows shoot to their foreheads, and several people sitting near us "ahemed" out loud.

This old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby.

I shoved a cracker at Erik, and he pulverized it on the tray. I whispered "Why me?" under my breath.

Our meal came, and the cacophony continued. Now the old bum was shouting from across the room: "Do ya know patty cake?...Atta boy... Do ya know peek-a-boo?...Hey, look, he knows peek-a-boo!"

Nobody thought it was cute. The guy was a drunk and a disturbance, I was embarrassed. My husband, Dennis, was humiliated. Even our six-year-old said, "Why is that old man talking so loud?"

We ate in silence--all except Erik, who was running through his repertoire for the admiring applause of a skid-row bum.

Finally, I had enough. I turned the high chair. Erik screamed and clamored around to face his old buddy. Now I was mad.

Dennis went to pay the check, imploring me to "get Erik and meet me in the parking lot."

I trundled Erik out of the high chair and looked toward the exit. The old man sat poised and waiting, his chair directly between me and the door.

"Lord, just let me out of here before he speaks to me or Erik." I bolted for the door.

I soon became obvious that both the Lord and Erik had other plans.

As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back, walking to sidestep him--and any air he might be breathing. As I did so, Erik, all the while with his eyes riveted to his best friend, leaned far over my arm, reaching with both arms in a baby's "pick me up" position.

In a split second of balancing my baby and turning to counter his weight I came eye-to-eye with the old man. Erik was lunging for him, arms spread wide.

The bum's eyes both asked and implored, "Would you let me hold your baby?"

There was no need for me to answer since Erik propelled himself from my arms to the man's.

Suddenly a very old man and a very young baby consummated their love relationship. Erik laid his tiny head upon the man's ragged shoulder. The man's eyes closed, and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes. His aged hands full of grime, and pain, and hard labor--gently, so gently, cradled my baby's bottom and stroked his back.

I stood awestruck. The old man rocked and cradled Erik in his arms for a moment, and then his eyes opened and set squarely on mine. He said in a firm and commanding voice, "You take care of this baby."

Somehow I managed, "I will", from a throat that contained a stone.

He pried Erik from his chest--unwillingly, longingly--as though he was in pain.

"God bless you ma'm. You've given me my Christmas gift."

I said nothing more than a muttered thanks.

With Erik back in my arms, I ran for the car. Dennis wondered why I was crying and holding Erik so tightly and why I was saying, "My God, oh God, forgive me."

Homily

I have a hard time with gift giving at different times in my life. This difficulty may be inherited. Every year my mother would begin the Christmas season by announcing it would be a good idea not to give gifts this year. This suggestion brought great distress to my sister and me who were bent on increasing our treasure on earth. Several times during my teenage years, in lieu of extravagant giving, we would travel to Florida during our Christmas break to bake ourselves as best we could. My mother was a big believer in the curing and restorative powers of sunshine for health. In the middle of winter, her mother used to bundle her up and sit her in the sun with the window open fearing the glass would interfere with the sun's healing power. My mother thought the greatest gift she could give us at Christmas was sunshine--a simple, yet precious gift to be sure for a frost bitten northern family.

Of course to children, gift receiving is terribly important. When I was young, the rotting of the Halloween pumpkin, and the stomach ache after too consuming too much candy was just a holiday prelude beginning my dreams of all the presents I wanted. I tried hard to be as nice to my sister as I could tolerably be, proving to Santa that even though I wasn't all that good, I could be good if the need ever arose. When the leaves were all raked, I began to bug my parents to get me toys that I didn't trust Santa might have stocked at the North Pole. On Christmas morning, my sister and I would open up all our presents with glee then line them up to see if we had received the same number of items or at least the value of what we had received was equal. My parents were meticulous about this always telling us they were making things equal and had no favorites. Sue and I would search for some reason to have a fight not so much because we felt unfairly treated but to annoy my parents. Why children need to do this, I'm still not sure of but it seems hard-wired into their kiddie programming. Aren't you glad you didn't have me as your kid?

A child comes into the world with nothing. Most of what they acquire must come to them through the generosity of others. I know my parents were not in the habit of indulging my whims for the neato super-cool toys I saw on television. Most of the year they would buy books and educational toys for me but at Christmas they would break down and get me what I really wanted. Those poorly constructed toys that look fabulous but are sure to break down before the thank you notes are written. The toy guns and soldiers, tanks, and rockets that peacenik parents particularly despise but little boys cherish. The pointless toys that all-the-rest-of-the-kids-have-so-I-gotta-have which will be played with once or twice then buried in the bottom of the toy chest with last year's Christmas trophies.

Gift giving gets harder as one gets older. The novelty of giving mugs with comical pictures or captions, flowers and potted plants, perfume and cologne that might work better as bug spray than a lure for the opposite sex, silver and gold pen and pencil sets, Christmas ornaments that shed glitter, boxes of fruit from Harry and David or down here De Soto Groves, mittens, hats and scarves wears off in the constant search for the perfect gift. The really good gifts you'd like to give cost too much and the one's you can afford seem cheap and uninspiring.

One also gets more cynical about how one is being manipulated to spend as much money as possible to give the gift that shows you care. Many businesses do by far the largest portion of their sales in November and December. One's conscience twinges not knowing if the latest Toy Story character being thrown in the shopping cart was made by ragged children in China who will not be getting one in their stocking. Money falls from our pockets, like a second shedding of the tree leaves to be swept up and deposited in the vaults of multinational corporations. That's sort of how my wallet feels in January, like a bare tree in a blizzard of bills. Along with the sound of canned carols singing out to no one in particular over department store speakers coddling our emotions to get us to reach for our wallets, are the defense remarks about the real meaning of Christmas muttered under the breath while looking at offensive price tags.

So now that I'm older, I'm starting to agree with my mother. And now I have the materialistic 4-year-old bent on acquisition. The wheel comes round full circle. And now that I'm older I also know through my own experience that the real gift of Christmas isn't the presents, isn't the opportunity to eat Christmas cookies and candy, isn't decorating the tree and plugging in the bubble candle lights, isn't the bundling against the chill in the air and the darkness all around, isn't lighting the Yule log and warming hands by firelight--though these all be part of the gift.

The real gift of Christmas are the bright, excited faces of children full of energy and vitality as they anticipate the coming of Christmas morning. The presence of children in our lives whether they give us joy or woe brings into our lives the same energy and vitality which says "yes" to a discouraged heart and answers our doubts. Their untutored innocence and reckless enthusiasm push us from our backwaters choked with debris of the decaying, slimy "NO's" collecting around us and pulls us out into the clear, bright sparkling water where the current runs deep and swift.

Too much complexity is layered over everything as we strive to manage more efficiently our lives as the years tick past, the calendar pages flying by faster and faster in a blizzard of paper. The longer we live the more we realize that there is no perfection to be realized. Worse, even if our treasure continues to streak toward the sky as the stock market breaks new records, our bodies inevitably run down signaling personal immortality is but a myopic dream. The older we get, the more we need the bright fresh eyes of children shining into our own to remind us the treasure of life is right here, right now and shall always be in this present moment.

The drunk holding a 1-year-old baby knows deeply the joys and sorrows of this world. Just holding a baby on Christmas morning can be the simplest gift of all. To know life is eternal whether or not we are. To know we participate in a splendor and a grandeur that inspires hope. Inspires faith, even for all the evil and woe, the death and destruction wreaked every day.

If Christmas didn't exist it would need to be invented. We need a yearly reminder of the love which springs from our breast in the presence of new life. And so the children come, as they have always come. And each one of them is a holy child full of love, possibility and joy. As we celebrate the birth of the holy child Jesus, may the simple gift of love and joy be born again in our hearts.

Copyright (c) 1997 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.