The Gift of the Magi

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and joyous days to all who celebrate differently

Image by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash

My first encounter with the tradition of Christmas gift-giving was not through reading the Gospel of Matthew or listening to carols or candlelit services. It was O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi.

I read the story from the same Selections of Foreign Literary Classics where I read Storm’s Immensee, two tales that couldn't be more different in style, yet both left the teenage me with the same wistful feeling, a feeling so deep that it felt visceral.

Reading O. Henry’s words today, on Christmas Eve of 2024, I feel something as deeply as I felt some 40 years ago, not wistful but hopeful:

But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

And I remembered what fellow Substacker

Tom Pendergast

wrote yesterday on

FORD KNOWS

, that:

we’ve got to live words like “love” for them to mean anything at all.

As we step into 2025, I wonder if that's not the greatest gift we can offer each other in our community of readers and writers—not just to write about love, hope, and wisdom but to live these words through our stories, our responses, and our shared moments of understanding. Like Della and Jim, we might sometimes miss the practical mark, but in our wholehearted giving, we touch something far more precious.

To all who gather here - whether you're celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, or simply another precious day of life - may your coming year be rich with stories lived as much as told.

Happy New Year of 2025!