And Mary said:

Sunday I heard a preacher say: “You have forgotten more Christmas gifts throughout the years than you can recall.”

How absolutely true is that statement…I cannot remember what gifts I was given last year, yet here we are again with a tree overloaded with presents.

I do, however, vividly remember one Christmas.  I was 16 years old and my older brother was home from college.

Christmas morning fell on a Sunday, the day our church would host a homeless breakfast.

That morning my brother, mother and I got up at 6am to drive into midtown Atlanta to serve breakfast to the homeless before returning home to open our presents.  I remember popping out of the bed, intentionally dodging the room with all the gifts so I would not be distracted, but with the same excitement that Christmas morning provides.  I remember the smell of the boiled eggs we served that morning, I remember the laughter of one of the pastors in the room, and I remember a finely dressed homeless man playing Christmas carols on the piano.  We lingered that Sunday morning, enjoying the fellowship, singing and telling the Christmas story: that the God of all creation would come into our messy lives as an infant child in order to one day die for our sins.  It was this year of my life when Christ began to awaken my heart to Him.  That is the one gift I do remember.

Now I have absolutely no memory of what presents I was given that year, but almost 2 decades later I can still recall that Christmas morning.