Let It Be Christmas...

Brandon and I have a tradition we do every year at this time. We read Christmas stories we have collected each day leading up to Christmas. The story we read on Christmas Eve is a new story that we buy for that year. Here is one of my favorites. It's a true story that has been retold by Thomas S. Monson (and shortened by me).

"A Christmas Dress For Ellen"

"On Christmas Eve, 1927, in the prairie town of Hillspring, Alberta, Canada, a young mother, Mary Jeppson, was getting her five small children ready for bed. Her heart was full of sorrow, for there was nothing to fill the stockings, and there would be only a little mush for breakfast. Mary had written to her sisters in Idaho, asking for help with such necessities as wheat, yeast, flour, and cornmeal. She had also asked for clothing and some old, used quilts, for all of hers were thin and full of holes. At the close of the letter, she had written, "If you could just find a dress that someone has outgrown, I could make it over to fit Ellen. She is far too somber for such a young girl. She worries so about the family and about our needs. She has only one dress that she wears all the time, and it is patched and faded." Her letter had gone unanswered, it seemed, and their Christmas would be far from merry.

The week before Christmas had found her husband, Leland, making the three-hour round trip to Cardston to the post office each day to check for a package from Idaho. Each time he left without a package...

...At 3:30 am they heard a knock at their door. Mary opened the door to find a man standing there with his son and she realized it was George Sidney Schow, the mailman from Cardston. He told Mary that he knew of their waiting for the package from Idaho and that he knew there would be no Christmas without it.

On this particular day of Christmas Eve, George, with his team of horses pulling his sleigh, had traveled through a violent snowstorm to deliver the mail to half a dozen or more communities near Cardston. When he returned to the post office that afternoon, he was so cold and exhausted that he ached throughout his body. He longed to settle his horses for the night and join the family celebration in his warm, cozy home. But someone from the train station came by the post office to tell him that ten large crates had arrived from the States for the Jeppson family.

It was about four in the afternoon, but already it was dark. The storm was getting worse. George's horses, shivering with cold, were not capable of making another trip. The mailman decided it was just too late. There wasn't anything he could do about it.

George went home to his eager family. He placed the Christmas tree in the living room, and the children joyfully gathered around to decorate it. Although he was surrounded by happy activity and by the delicious aromas of traditional Danish holiday foods, George could not shake off thoughts of the struggling Jeppson family and the packages waiting at the post office. He took his wife aside, and the couple knelt and prayed for guidance. They decided that the only thing he could do was to take the crates out to the Jeppson's little isolated farmhouse in Hillspring that very night.

So with a borrowed team of horses and a borrowed sleigh with sharper runners than his own, he set out for the Jeppson place, accompanied by his fifteen-year-old son. They struggled to find their way through the blinding snowstorm but at last they arrived at the farmhouse. They were relieved to see one small light still on in the house. When they entered the home they saw how bare and humble it was, and they knew why they had felt so urgently prompted to make the trip. They brought in the crates and Mary insisted that the two stand by the stove to get warm.

It was nearly five o'clock in the morning when the sleigh headed back into town. They wouldn't get home until noon or later on Christmas day.

Mary quickly began to unpack the crates, for she had only an hour or so before the children would awaken. At the top of one of the crates she found a letter from her sisters. They told her that quilting bees had been held all over the Malad Valley, and from these, six thick, warm, beautiful quilts had been made for them. They also told of the many women who had sewn shirts for the boys and dresses for the girls, and of others who had knitted warm gloves and hats.

The donation of socks and shoes had come from people for miles around. The Relief Society had held a bazaar to raise the money to buy the coats, and all of Mary Jeppson's sisters, nieces, cousins, aunts, and uncles in Idaho had gotten together to bake the breads and make candy to send. There was even a crate half full of beef that had been cured and packed so that it could be shipped, along with two or three slabs of bacon and two hams.

The letter closed with these words: "We hope you have a Merry Christmas, and thank you so much for making our Christmas the best one we've ever had!"

Mary's family awakened that Christmas morning to what to them was a miracle. Bacon was sizzling on the stove, and hot muffins were ready to come out of the oven. There were jars of jams and jellies and canned fruit.

For each boy there were a bag of marbles, and each girl had a little rag doll made just for her. Every stocking that was hanging was stuffed full of homemade taffy, fudge, divinity, and dried fruit of every kind. Later, Mary and Leland were to find tucked in the toe of the stockings that had been sent for them a few dollars with a little note that the money was to be used to buy coal for the rest of the winter.

The most wonderful miracle, though, occurred when Ellen, the very last to get up, rubbed her eyes in disbelief as she looked at the spot where her stocking was supposed to have been hung the night before and saw hanging there a beautiful red Christmas dress, trimmed with white and green satin ribbons. She later said it was the most wonderful Christmas ever. That morning, with the Christmas dress for Ellen, a childhood had been brought back, a childhood of hopes and dreams and Santa Claus and the miracle of Christmas.

From a beloved Christmas hymn we recall these lines:

How silently, how silently

The wondrous gift is giv'n!

So God imparts to human hearts

The blessings of his heav'n.

No ear may hear his coming;

But in this world of sin,

Where meek souls will receive him, still

The dear Christ enters in.

May all of us welcome the Savior of the world into our hearts and into our Christmas celebrations. May we experience the joy of setting aside convenience and personal comfort, if need be, in favor of Christian service. Then may we learn, as did an ancient prophet, that when we are in the service of our fellow beings, we are only in the service of our God."

Merry Christmas!

Love,

The Gardners