Holiday Miracle

Thirty years ago, I was a brand new social worker, serving frail elders. Our agency selected clients to receive one of our small community’s Christmas baskets. I was all excited. I loved the idea of bringing a beautiful basket of food and gifts to a few of my precious clients.

I was sitting in the living room of a woman I considered the most deserving candidate for a holiday basket in that entire town. I began to tell her about them: “Our agency is working with the Christmas baskets this year,” I said.

She smiled.

I opened my mouth to continue, but something held me back, literally silenced me. All I could do was to lean forward, encouragingly.

“I feel so sorry for those poor people who have no one at Christmas-time,” she said.

Silenced, I could only nod.

“The young people from the church sing carols to me on Christmas Eve, and then my neighbors George and Edward come for dinner the next day.”

“They have no one,” she confided.

“I roast a whole chicken, and we have all the trimmings. It must be so hard for those poor folks,” she repeated.

“Is it too late to put something in the baskets?” she asked.

The lock on my mouth released, and I slowly said, “No.”

“I have all these potholders, and I think there’s nearly enough to put one in each basket. Do you think they’d like them?”

I had seen those potholders many times. She worked on them constantly, confined to her chair, while watching an endless stream of soap operas and game shows. Meter readers, door-to-door salesmen, home health nurses: all had left her home with colorful, crocheted potholders.

“If only I had a little bit more yarn,” she continued.

I knew where there was lots of yarn, down in my own basement. Leftover from half-finished afghans, it reproached me whenever I walked past.

We quickly made plans for me to deliver the yarn to her home, and then pick up the completed potholders in time to place one in each Christmas basket that went out to our town that year.

You talk about holiday miracles. They usually take place within a human heart. The closest I’ve gotten is the moment I realized that what this woman needed wasn’t a Christmas basket. What she needed was yarn.

Sometimes the best gift is letting someone else do the giving.