Through a series of illustrations, see the many ways people mistake Christmas as many things when it's really a Singular OTHER.
MOVIES, featuring Miracle on 34th Street. A little girl, played by Natalie Wood, met a bearded man, played by Edmund Gwenn, in Macy's Department store. He claimed to be Santa Claus. The movie saw Santa as the REASON people have hope and joy at Christmas time. San Diego U/T, 12/11/21. That was the Result of, not the Meaning of, Christmas. STORIES, highlighted by Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. A miser turns philanthropist by receiving a delay in his death. While it's a feel-good story about the Season, people wrongly consider it the Meaning of Christmas when it's only the Result. OCCUPATIONS, as in the first Department store Santa. (Reminisce Magazine, Dec/Jan 2022, p. 20.) The owner of a dry goods' store loved dressing as Santa each Christmas season to greet kids in his store. They came from miles around to visit him. It didn't take long before other merchants hired their own store Santa. It didn't take cities long to welcome Santa to their town in every conceivable conveyance. All that represented the Result, not the Meaning, of Christmas. Skipping other illustrations, consider the story of a policeman. (Reminisce Dec. 2015/Jan. 2016, p. 11.) Responding to a Christmas Eve domestic violence call, he heard shouts as he approached the house. Entering, he saw items strewn over the floor, likely thrown by the parents at each other. What shocked him was the five-year old boy on a sofa: in a body cast from waist down, crying hard. The officer warned the parents that one would be jailed if any further fighting occurred. He also told them he would return to monitor them. As he drove away, anger at the parents dissolved in sympathy for the boy. He conscience demanded that he MUST do something for that little boy. He stopped at a nearby toy store, just as the owner was leaving. The officer explained the situation and said he wanted to buy a gift for the boy. In the store he saw a big Teddy Bear—just the thing, but obviously too expensive. He told the owner that he wanted that bear, but had only $4—not nearly enough. The man listened, smiled and replied that he had priced the bear for sale at $4, tax included. Each had something in his eyes as they completed the transaction. Returning to the house, he handed Teddy to the five-year old, who hugged it as a living thing. Because very likely, in their mutual rage, the parents had failed to hug him as a living person. The policeman concluded that the experience proved how the meaning of Christmas could change people's lives. Good as that feeling was, important as it was to the officer and store owner, it proved the Result, not the Meaning, of Christmas. Given these, and the many other examples, of the Result of Christmas, how can we be sure to KNOW the Meaning?
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