The Best Thing about Christmas

Four-year-old Ann blinked her eyes in amazement as she watched the Christmas lights come on. She looked up and down the street and saw all the decorations. A chubby cardboard Santa was just getting out of his sleigh in the Wilsons’ front yard, and the Bakers had put up their lifesize Wise Men again. Ann especially liked to see the camels with their big humps. She wondered how the Wise Men could ever stay seated on them. Right next door to her house was a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer whose nose flashed on and off!

“Oh, Mommy,” she said excitedly, “the best thing about Christmas is the beautiful street decorations.”

The next day, Ann helped her mother cut out Christmas cookies. She made stars and Christmas trees and Santa Clauses and bells. Then she helped frost the cookies and sprinkle glittering silver, red, and green sugar sparkles on top of each one. And sometimes Ann popped a cookie right into her mouth.

“Mmmmmm. I think making cookies is the best thing about Christmas,” she told her mother.

That night Ann sat at the kitchen table, stringing pieces of popcorn and cranberries on thread. First she put on four pieces of popcorn, because she was four years old. Then she put on one cranberry for baby Lisa who was one year old—four pieces of popcorn and a cranberry, four pieces of popcorn and a cranberry. Ann had to poke the needle through just the right place and be careful not to poke her finger!

“Mommy,” Ann said as she showed her how long the strand was, “I guess the best thing about Christmas is decorating the tree.”

The next morning, Ann and her mother went shopping downtown in a big department store. There were red and green ribbons with different sizes of gold balls all over the store and Ann could hear Christmas carols as she and her mother rode up the escalator to the toy department. Ann liked looking at all the exciting toys. She saw some colored blocks and a big pink ball and a blue and yellow Big Wheel with racing stripes and a doll with pretty black hair.

“May I help you with something?” a smiling salesclerk asked.

“Yes, I want to buy this big pink ball for my sister Lisa,” Ann replied.

On the way home Ann squeezed her mother’s hand. “The very best thing about Christmas is shopping for gifts to give,” she told her.

On Christmas morning, Ann was wide awake even before the sun came up. After she had eaten breakfast with Lisa and her parents, they all marched into the living room singing “Jingle Bells.” Shouting with excitement, Ann rushed over to a brand-new Big Wheel just her size. When she had ridden it once around the room she jumped off and ran over to give her mother and dad a big hug and kiss.

“Just what I wanted,” she told them. “Presents are the best thing about Christmas.”

As they sat down to unwrap their gifts, Ann watched eagerly as Lisa, her face shining with joy, pulled the paper and bows off the new ball Ann had wrapped for her. “The best thing about Christmas is seeing Lisa with her first Christmas gifts,” she told her mother and father.

Later that morning, Ann went to Sunday School with her family. For the Christmas program, she sang “Away in a Manger” and “Silent Night” with her class. She had also been chosen to give a little toy lamb to Mary for the Baby Jesus. Mary, who lovingly held her new baby, was really Sister Richards dressed in a blue robe. But as Ann presented the gift, she looked at the baby lying peacefully in Sister Richards’ arms and could almost imagine that it really was the Baby Jesus.

On the way home from Sunday School, Ann’s mother said, “We were all proud of you this morning, dear. I’m wondering if you think being in the program is the best thing about Christmas.”

Ann remembered the wonderfully happy feeling she had when she gave the toy lamb to Sister Richards and the feeling that she was almost giving it to the Baby Jesus. And then she said, “Oh, Mother, I thought I knew what the best thing about Christmas was. But now I know the very best thing about Christmas is that Jesus came to live on earth.”