The best Christmas gift I ever gave anyone was the one I gave my father about 20 years ago: a Lionel train set.
Every year, we got him the same gifts, you see.
And every year he’d tell me to tell us, “For God’s sakes, please, no more sweaters.”
As he unwrapped my gift — expecting another sweater — he went speechless when he realized what I got him.
For a few moments, he was restored to the 10-year-old whose mother could never afford to give him such a magnificent gift.
Throughout the first 70 years of his life, he never could afford to splurge on a Lionel train set, which, as every boy knows, is the Cadillac of train sets.
I never got a Lionel set, either, but, like most former 10-year-old boys I’d always longed for one.
So I got a train set for my father and for the next 20 years of his life I watched it bring a child-like joy to him every Christmas, as he set it up under the tree.
I don’t recall exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the way I became very poor at receiving gifts.
I feel joy when I give gifts that bring joy to others — which is selfish, since I rob others of the joy they wish to experience as they see their gifts bringing joy to me.
To that end, the Christmas holiday offers a wonderful opportunity to remember how to experience and share joy — an opportunity to restore what came so naturally to us as children.
That’s because Christmas offers an opportunity to become more childlike — more open-minded, imaginative, silly and playful.
And curious!
“Why?” is the question children ask over and again.
Copyright 2023 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.