A Christmas Gift | Eastern North Carolina Now

A Christmas Gift

BY:  BUZZ CAYTON

GIVING IS BETTER THAN RECEIVING

A few years ago, our church asked for volunteers to take a family that we could help for Christmas.

My wife and I set out one afternoon to take a gift to a couple that we had been assigned. They had not been regular church attendees.

We drove out through a neighborhood of manufactured homes and found their lot.  Their home was located at the back of the lot.  There was un-mowed grass in the front yard with a dirt lane leading up to the house.  I drove carefully up to the side entrance making my own tracks as I drove.

I went to the door with a Christmas card that contained a sizeable bill.  When I knocked, the husband came to the door dressed in his underwear with no top and a hairy tummy hanging out.  I asked if his wife was home, and he said that she was not dressed.  He did not invite me in, and I wished him a merry Christmas and gave him the card.

We started backing out of the long driveway, trying to stay in the tracks I had made coming in, when I looked up and saw his wife running across the yard in flip-flops and a bath robe.  I rolled down the window and she reached in and grabbed me and hugged me crying and saying, “Thank you, thank you.”

For me, a small act of kindness.  For her, the difference in having something for Christmas.

Truly one of my happier Christmases.