A Christmas Story

The Christmas of my tenth year, our family lived in a little house in LaVerkin, Utah. We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rich either. Like Ralphie, I wanted a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun more than anything else in the world. When Christmas morning came, there it was, under the tree! I was ecstatic. I didn’t think about the sacrifices my parents must have made to give it to me, and graciously, my parents didn’t remind me. No one even told me that I would shoot my eye out. Dad showed me how to load it. He cocked it, pulled the trigger, and hit mom’s living room table leg. She was NOT happy. I can still see my dad’s sheepish grin, and I remember how quickly mom forgave him.



In my excitement, I almost forgot about another present, one that had been driving me crazy since it arrived two weeks before, from my grandmother Call in Sparks, Nevada. It was a small box with a lid tied up with a ribbon. It rattled. I tried to guess its contents, but mom would not admit to knowing what was in it (even though I’m sure that she did know). I shook it, dropped it, tried to slide the ribbon off (Mom wouldn’t let me). Finally, I got so frustrated that I said: “It’s nothing but a stupid rock! I don’t even want it! I’m not even gonna open it!” And I threw it across the room! Mom didn’t get angry; she just picked it up and placed it under the tree again (with a private smile, I’m sure).

After the thrill of the BB gun waned a little, I went straight for that package. I tore off the ribbon and lifted the lid. Inside, on a bed of cotton, was a shiny silver dollar. Mom reminded me that I said that I didn’t want it and suggested that I give it to the boy next door, my best friend, Leon Duncan. Not being completely foolish, I repented of my earlier remark very quickly and kept the dollar.

I’m sure that the BB gun was an expensive gift for my parents at that time. I’m also sure that the silver dollar was a sacrifice for my grandmother. When I was ten, I didn’t think much about the sacrifices others made almost daily on my behalf. I thought much more about myself and what I wanted. Most kids are like that – somewhat selfish, but impulsively generous and forgiving too. Forgiveness comes easily to children. Past offenses are quickly forgotten and friendship is renewed.

I tell you this story because that Christmas has stayed in my memory more than any other Christmas from my youth. The BB gun is long gone, and I spent the dollar as fast as I could. I remember buying more BBs (5 cents), but I have forgotten what else I spent it on. Today, 59 years later, I don't miss the BB gun, but I wish I still had the silver dollar. I have so few things that my grandmother’s hands actually touched – a tablecloth she made, a few photographs, and some pillowcases she embroidered are about the only things that come to mind.

That Christmas has, over the years, has caused me to re-evaluate my relationship to eternal things several times. For me, the box and the silver dollar are a metaphor for the greatest gift ever given to the world by our Heavenly Father – His only begotten son. I sometimes feel like a ten-year-old boy again, throwing away that wonderful gift, because of my selfishness and lack of understanding.

Elder William J. Critchlow, Jr., in the April 1966 General Conference, reaffirmed what many others have taught:

The greatest gift God has bestowed upon us, his errant children, is the gift of his Only Begotten Son—our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

  But blessedly, the gift of His son was made with a purpose and a promise. Elder Orson Pratt, said in a talk delivered in the Tabernacle, Sunday afternoon, Sept. 19th, 1880, as recorded in the Journal of Discourses,

…the atonement of our Savior, which is the gift of God to the fallen inhabitants of this creation, lies at the foundation of all the other gifts given unto the children of men.

The Army’s Academy at West Point is 210 years old, and is full of Military tradition. But there is one tradition you might not expect, given the Academy’s super-high standards and military traditions. Every year, the last-ranking cadet to make it through to graduation is anointed the “goat,” showered with praise, given a dollar from every other fellow graduate—amounting to roughly $1,000—and granted the biggest applause at the graduation ceremony.
At first, this seemed to me to be a dubious distinction. But as I thought about it, I realized that the “goat” still graduated and was still given a commission as an officer in the regular army.

I often feel like the “goat.” I believe that it is only because of the atonement and through the process of repentance and the grace of the Savior that I will be granted entrance to the Celestial Kingdom. I tell myself that I am doing my best to live the gospel and to repent when I commit the multitude of sins I need to repent of every week, but I often feel like I am finishing last. I am eternally grateful for the grace of God but “I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me, confused at the Grace that so fully He proffers me.”(“I Stand All Amazed,” Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, no. 193). In 2 Nephi 10:24 we read:

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved.

I am grateful to know that the grace of God is bestowed upon me. In 2 Nephi 25:23 we read:

For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.

I believe that the Grace of God comes to us nearly every day “after all we can do” as we seek to do what is right, and not just at the end of our lives after we have done “all we can do” as we prepare to graduate from this mortal existence. His grace helps us to develop the fortitude necessary to come in last, if necessary, but always doing our best. Ardeth Greene Kapp, in her book, Rejoice! His Promises Are Sure, p 128, says:

The Savior wants us to develop within ourselves a living strength that will quench forever our thirst for peace and happiness and eternal life.

Goat-like customs have cropped up in other places. The Naval Academy calls their last-ranking midshipman the “anchorman.” The Iditarod and the Tour de France both call every year’s last place finisher the “red lantern,” after the old practice of hanging a red lantern on a train’s caboose.

Whether I am the “goat,” the anchorman, or the “red light,” I take some small comfort in the thought that even though I may be the last, or close to it, to enter the kingdom, I will still have the opportunity to grow eternally and progress to an exalted state.

Let us work to develop the “living strength” of which Ardeth Capp speaks, and let us not reject the box (which to many on the earth seems so small that they throw it away) filled with the greatest gifts we have ever been given. Our Savior, his atonement and our repentance, and the eternal life they bring cannot be measured in any terms but the eternal, because they are the key to entry into the presence of God the Father and His son for forever.