Come Home to the Manger

The Most Cherished Gift

Each Christmas when I was a kid, like clock-work, and no matter what was going on, I could always count on receiving a blunt, circular object wrapped in plain green and red tissue paper. It was as dependable as the Christmas tree going up on Thanksgiving weekend and Santa’s visit always happening after I finally fell asleep. I just knew it would always be there. Now, I’ve always been that guy who inspects presents carefully when no one is watching. So, if the size, shape, and wrapping paper didn’t give it away, the fact that its contents always jingled when I picked it up and shook it confirmed what was inside the carefully wrapped gift. As I got older, I didn’t even bother checking it before I opened it. You see, every single year of my childhood, this was the little package left for me at Christmas from my grandma Luella West.

Grandma raised ten kids, and most of them got married and had kids of their own. So she literally had a small village of grandchildren to buy for at Christmas. My grandparents never had much money anyway, but after my grandpa passed away in 1984, things were even tighter for my grandma. No matter the circumstances of her life, she always welcomed a visit from all the members of the big West clan. And she enjoyed celebrating during our annual Christmas visits to northern Iowa, even later in her life when she was dealing with health issues. My grandma never let her situation stop her from giving a Christmas gift to each of her many grandchildren.

• There was something special about the simplicity and sacrifice in her giving that still sticks with me all these years later.

I guess I understand very clearly now how hard she had to work and how carefully she had to save throughout the year just so I could hold that blunt, jingling object in my hands each Christmas. I remember those moments when my brother and I would sit together and unwrap Grandma’s gift to find the same Gerber baby food jar. That was her offering to us each year. A container, carefully wrapped and filled with one hundred pennies. Each and every one of the West grandchildren received a dollar for Christmas.

Of course, as a kid, you are always going to be more allured by the bigger gifts like a pair of Nikes, baseball cards, or a remote-controlled car. Those were the kinds of things we received from our parents and other relatives on Christmas morning. As the presents were opened, I would politely thank my grandma for her gift and then quickly set it aside (secretly disappointed), ready to move on to the more flashy and exciting ones. I’ll admit, at the time, the significance of her gift was lost on me. The sacrifice Grandma West made to give us that dollar went completely unappreciated. To be honest, most years I held out hope that she would give me something different. But there it was, year after year after year, a blunt, round, jingly baby food jar filled with a hundred pennies. 

As I grew older and wiser, I began to realize what it meant for her to give all of us that gift. It actually became a cherished moment that I always looked forward to at Christmas. My brother and I began to anticipate her present with some teenage humor like, “Where are you going to spend your dollar from Grandma?” But in reality, we had grown to really treasure her intention.

I don’t know if I fully understood how much my grandma’s faithful giving truly captured the heart of Christmas until the year I graduated from college. I remember that she was one of my biggest cheerleaders and was always so proud of me. She was also really supportive of my music dreams and let everyone know about it. When you are just starting out, faith and belief from the people who love you can be like wind in your sails. I always laugh when I think about how she used to tell me that I was going to be the next Elvis Presley! And I will never forget our visit when she sat me down and told me, “Matthew, someday you’re going to play the Grand Ole Opry!” You know, she wound up being right (about the Grand Ole Opry, not Elvis). She had really big hopes for me.

The Christmas before I graduated from college, she presented me with another blunt, jingly gift wrapped in the same paper as every year, but this one was somewhat bigger than what I had come to expect in years past. That particular present would be the best Christmas gift I ever received. You know, when I think back on my life now, the memories of all the big, flashy, or expensive Christmas presents I got as a kid have faded away, but I still remember Grandma West’s. And I am still impacted by the lesson her gift taught me about the heart of Christmas.

Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday, but I am aware it is all too often commercial, material, full of big price tags, big events, big noise, and constant busyness. Even in the West house, sometimes we go big with our celebrations and stack the presents taller than the one who is opening them! Many of us can take the holiday celebrations a little bit over the top. But if I’m being honest, while all those things are fun, they aren’t ever the truly meaningful moments. None of them make Christmas the homecoming it is supposed to be. I still think often about Grandma West and how the simplicity and sacrifice of her giving continually points me toward the heart of that first Christmas and the manger.

Because the true story of Christmas is the gift of a humble King in humble beginnings. 

When we take a break from the chaos of the season and stop looking to fill the empty spaces in our lives with the world’s empty promises and false hopes, we find the meaning, intention, and sacrifice all right there in God’s love story to us.

I want to invite you to turn your heart back toward the greatest gift ever given. I want you to remember this Christmas how all God’s blessings began, with the unexpected gift of eternal hope lying in a manger two thousand years ago in Bethlehem. I want you to take time this Christmas to bring your attention to the moment the Savior arrived.

In a world that says go big or go home, God entered creation in the most unassuming town, in the most understated circumstance, in a most unassertive form.

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Excerpted with permission from Come Home for Christmas by Matthew West, copyright Matthew West. 

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Your Turn 

It’s normal that we learn to cherish the more meaningful gifts as we grow into adulthood. But, this year, let’s find our greatest joy and gratitude in the best gift of all — our Savior, Jesus! ~ Devotionals Daily