Check It Out: The best gifts aren’t under the tree

By Joan Janzen

The man’s wife said she’d be happy with any gift with lots of diamonds in it, so he wrapped up a pack of playing cards. Another bit of Christmas humour had a wife set a limit on how much the couple would spend on each other at Christmas. She set a limit of $50 on her husband, and a limit of $1,000 for herself. And last of all, a note delivered three weeks after Christmas said, “To all those who received a book from me for Christmas, they’re due back at the library today.”

Lately I’ve listened to stories recalling amazing gifts people have received. In an episode of “Miracles of the Holidays”, hosted by actor Richard Thomas a few years ago, parents recalled the story of their son’s birth.

The baby was born with a hole in his heart and required open heart surgery. The surgery was scheduled just prior to Christmas, and the doctor sat the parents down to discuss the operation. He said there was a 50/50 chance that the surgery would have a positive outcome.

The couple asked to take their baby out of the hospital for a day, to spend some time together as a family. Not knowing if they would ever share another Christmas with their son, they went to a nearby mall to get the baby’s picture taken with Santa, before returning him to the hospital to prepare for surgery.

While standing in a long line-up of people, Santa waved at them to come to the front of the line. He then asked to hold the baby and said to the baby, “You’re going to have a great heart for Christmas. Everything is going to be just fine.”

The baby’s parents were shocked and asked the Santa how he knew about their baby’s heart. Santa replied, “Santa Claus knows everything”. They took a photo of their son with Santa, and left the mall completely amazed.

The next morning, baby Jimmy had his surgery, while the parents were in the waiting room for hours. Finally the doctor came in and said the surgery went far better than expected. He called Jimmy a little miracle baby because there were none of the complications he had anticipated.

Four days later little Jimmy was discharged from the hospital, and the parents couldn’t wait to take him to see Santa at the mall and tell him the good news! But when they arrived there was a different Santa at the mall. When they asked the mall manager where the other Santa was, she assured them this Santa was the one they had since day one. The couple looked at each other and knew they had seen an angel disguised as Santa just the week before.

Another story told on “It’s a Miracle”, was about Timothy, the youngest of nine siblings. The adventurous child grew up and became a military pilot. His peers dubbed him with the nickname Nixon, which he had printed on his helmet.

He flew a mission overseas and a few days later his family received news that his helicopter had crashed, and his body had not been found in the wreckage that was recovered. The family had no closure, which they found extremely difficult, and they prayed for something to be found.

Three years later, at the end of November, a fishing boat caught something in their net - Timothy’s helmet, with the name ‘Nixon” printed on it. It was delivered to the family just before Christmas. The fishing boat was 200 miles from the crash site, and the Navy said the fact that the helmet ended up in a fishing net was remarkable. Even more remarkable, was the family was told the helmet had been found on Timothy’s birthday.

His sister said it was a gift from God, and the tangible gift made their faith so much stronger. It was the best Christmas present the family had ever received!

All these gifts have one thing in common; each one was given by God the father who had sent his son to earth years ago as a gift to everyone, including you. Even more than Santa, he hears your spoken and unspoken heart felt cries.

And so I wish you a blessed Christmas filled with his love, and the realization that the best gifts aren’t found under a Christmas tree.