Christmas gift

Let's dive in.

So my parents, who are 65 and 53, paid off my siblings and their partner's student loan debt as a Christmas gift this year.

Now I'm very aware of how privileged I am to have parents that are able to do this for me.

My parents were able to help their three kids through college, so we collectively had very little student loan debt compared to most.

And what was the reason again? You said there was a specific reason why Peggy wanted it delivered after hours.

What was that reason again?

Well, she and Brenna apparently had made a pact not to exchange Christmas gifts and I wouldn't let her leave without going out and get her one if she hadn't done one already.

And so she got one, and they had Russ take it up.

I think he was leaving that night.

I think he did.

So I know it's near Christmas and we're all buying Christmas presents, aren't we, Laurie? I love Christmas shopping.

In fact, I offer to do all your Christmas shopping for you, Laurie, and you, Terry, if you want, because I love it and I take it very seriously and it's a job and I do it very, very well.

I have lists, I do research, I have plans of where I need to go, I do most of it online.

That's not good enough for me.

Well, it's the other way around.

As in, I have quite low expectations for Christmas presents.

When I was growing up, my mum would buy me a deodorant or a pair of pants or something, and that was good.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Number five, The Christmas Gift by Horatio Alger Jr.

Heavily, heavily fell the snow, covering the dark brown earth, already hardened by the frost, with a pure white covering.

As the rain falls alike upon the just and upon the unjust, so too the snow, God's kindred messenger, knows no distinction of persons, visiting all alike, forgetting none, and passing by none.

Around a Christmas tree, brilliant with light, a happy group were assembled.

As he stood gazing in, he heard the front door open, and a gentleman came out and kindly invited him to enter.

He did so, and the words of kindness and the Christmas gift with which he departed have not yet left his remembrance.

Seven years passed, and the boy's fortune changed.

Let us take it in hand now so that we shall be in time for next Christmas.

my crusade is on behalf of those who spend their christmas away from home last year i returned with great difficulty from such an adventure and i am more convinced than ever that christmas presents should conform to a certain standard of size My own little offerings were thoughtfully chosen, a matchbox, a lace handkerchief or two, a cigarette holder, a pencil and notebook, gems from Wilcox, and so on.

Such gifts not only bring pleasure, let us hope, to the recipient, but take up a negligible amount of room in one's bag and add hardly anything to the weight of it.

of course if your fellow-visitor says to you how sweet of you to give me such a darling little handkerchief it's just what i wanted how ever did you think of it you do not reply well it was a choice between that and a hundredweight of coal and i'll give you two guesses why i chose the handkerchief no you smile and modestly say as soon as i saw it i felt somehow that it was yours after which you are almost in a position to ask your host casually where he keeps the mistletoe but it is almost a certainty that the presents you receive will not have been chosen with such care.

Recording by Maria Therese.

Christmas Presents.

Merry Christmas, boys and girls.

In my Mass this morning, as my Christmas present to you, I am going to ask our Blessed Lord that every one of you may experience all the true joys of this great day.

And remember, that was about a quarter after 4 in the morning, because our entire family used to go to the solemn Mass at 5 o'clock.

Everything was so wonderful that morning.

All the people wishing one another a Merry Christmas on the way to church, the beautiful decorations in the church itself, the magnificent singing of the choir as they welcomed the Christ Child, the crowded trip to the communion rail to receive the Christ Child into our hearts, the heartwarming visit to the crib after Mass, and then the rush for home for a glorious breakfast and the Christmas presents from my mother and father and from all my sisters and brothers.

Boys and girls, I could go on and on describing the wonders and the happiness of the Christmas days I knew as a youngster, but I don't want to take up too much of your time.