“Oh, you poor thing,” the Dillards clerk exclaimed as she copied numbers from my driver's license onto the check I’d just written. “Born on Christmas Day! You really got ripped off, huh?”
I glanced up from my checkbook, where I’d been trying to remember what I did with check #2642. Already that morning I had battled my way through Stein Mart’s customer service line to exchange a sweater, and I still had Toys R Us looming before me. For expediency’s sake, I stood ready to agree with her.
I couldn’t do it, though. Whenever anyone finds out I was born on Dec. 25, they always react with sympathy and attempt to comfort me about my bad luck. It makes as much sense as when grandmotherly strangers try to console me for having three boys and no girls, as if I could have -- or would have -- done anything about it.
The truth is, though, that I hadn’t thought much about my birthday falling on the biggest holiday of the year. Maybe it bothered me a bit when I was a kid. We were never in school on my birthday, so I didn’t get to see Mrs. Turner draw a birthday cake with my name on it in colored chalk on the blackboard. Since second grade, however, I’ve gotten over it.
A Christmas birthday does lend itself to interesting variations of the usual holiday practices. As a child, I left Santa a piece of my birthday cake instead of milk and cookies. And contrary to the apparent consensus of many Cool Springs store clerks, no one close to me has ever forgotten my birthday or tried to pass off one gift to cover both celebrations.
Of course, I do have to wait all year if there’s a gift I really would like to ask for, but that’s gotten easier to overcome with each birthday.
In fact, my family members have always gone out of their way to make the day special for me, from their cheery “Happy Birthday!” in response to my “Merry Christmas!” greeting to the specially designated birthday presents wrapped in paper that is any color but red or green.
Remembering those times, I realized right there at the cash register that being born on Christmas Day is anything but a rip-off. I know of no better day to come into the world than when peace and joy reign, when a child’s anticipation is almost unbearable, when people in every nation rejoice to commemorate a birth that changed history.
Sharing a birthday with Jesus Christ is a great blessing to me, and that store clerk inadvertently reminded me why. Christmastime can be hectic and stressful. But it’s also when most of us are intently focused on someone other than ourselves.
Every day, but especially on my birthday, I have the chance to thank God for gifts I’d never want to exchange.
I glanced up from my checkbook, where I’d been trying to remember what I did with check #2642. Already that morning I had battled my way through Stein Mart’s customer service line to exchange a sweater, and I still had Toys R Us looming before me. For expediency’s sake, I stood ready to agree with her.
I couldn’t do it, though. Whenever anyone finds out I was born on Dec. 25, they always react with sympathy and attempt to comfort me about my bad luck. It makes as much sense as when grandmotherly strangers try to console me for having three boys and no girls, as if I could have -- or would have -- done anything about it.
The truth is, though, that I hadn’t thought much about my birthday falling on the biggest holiday of the year. Maybe it bothered me a bit when I was a kid. We were never in school on my birthday, so I didn’t get to see Mrs. Turner draw a birthday cake with my name on it in colored chalk on the blackboard. Since second grade, however, I’ve gotten over it.
A Christmas birthday does lend itself to interesting variations of the usual holiday practices. As a child, I left Santa a piece of my birthday cake instead of milk and cookies. And contrary to the apparent consensus of many Cool Springs store clerks, no one close to me has ever forgotten my birthday or tried to pass off one gift to cover both celebrations.
Of course, I do have to wait all year if there’s a gift I really would like to ask for, but that’s gotten easier to overcome with each birthday.
In fact, my family members have always gone out of their way to make the day special for me, from their cheery “Happy Birthday!” in response to my “Merry Christmas!” greeting to the specially designated birthday presents wrapped in paper that is any color but red or green.
Remembering those times, I realized right there at the cash register that being born on Christmas Day is anything but a rip-off. I know of no better day to come into the world than when peace and joy reign, when a child’s anticipation is almost unbearable, when people in every nation rejoice to commemorate a birth that changed history.
Sharing a birthday with Jesus Christ is a great blessing to me, and that store clerk inadvertently reminded me why. Christmastime can be hectic and stressful. But it’s also when most of us are intently focused on someone other than ourselves.
Every day, but especially on my birthday, I have the chance to thank God for gifts I’d never want to exchange.
1 comment:
Happy Birthday Jill!
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