Love

When I was nine and my father asked me what I wanted for Christmas I said, “Something I can build and then when it’s built I can play with it.”

Fifty years later, when my wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas I said, “Fifty pieces of rebar two feet long.”

Both of these requests were a challenge, the first because Legos hadn’t been invented yet, and the second because, well, it just didn’t seem like much of a Christmas present.

In my family Christmas was always about love. The question, “What do you want for Christmas?” was not just another way of saying, “So what’s my shopping list for you this year?” It was more, “Tell me about your loves, that I may show you that I love what you love, because I love you.” (In case you haven’t guessed, I love to build.)

Perish the thought, but I have to confess that one fear I have for children these days is that they will be given a book. Read More…

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