ANTON is almost 20 years old but he has the heart of a child. During the opening of gifts at Christmas Eve, this special child with Down Syndrome loves to discover presents wrapped in red and golden ribbons under the Christmas Tree.
You’d think he knew about the Three Kings.

Picture him ripping off wraps from one gift to the other with a smile in his face. He doesn’t miss a single gift, doesn’t leave any for him unopened. But most of them he’d set aside, push them gently away until he arrives at the gift he’d prefer, like a kid bicycle, or video game paraphernalia. He’d put away the other gift boxes, including a pair of converse shoes, an electronic toy car, special building blocks, color patterns in an interesting new blanket, a new shirt. For the rest of the hour after the Christmas Eve dinner, he’d play with only the bike although he’d keep watch over his other gifts, still with a smile, lest anyone else takes them away.

It is probably this good feeling in Anton that we also sense in any loved one’s affectionate gesture, no matter how small. And this has kept gift-giving in many cultures memorable, especially on Christmas and during the Epiphany, or fest of the Three Kings. Like Anton, there’s something in us that opens up heartily to gifts on Christmas.

It seems that the Three Wise Men (Caspar, Balthazar and Melchior) must have started it all—this sense of gift-giving to celebrate Christ’s birth. They thought of giving the Infant Child gifts of myrrh, frankincense and gold, items of importance where they came from, the East.

But an American economic policy director, Kevin Hasset, in an article said that the first two gifts weren’t very useful, only gold would have been practical for Mary and Joseph—it was like money given with which they could exchange for what they needed. They probably had no use for myrrh and frankincense. One would consider such thought at this time in this practical world of ours, yes.

But Mary and Joseph must have appreciated all the gifts of the Magi. It’s said the poor parents of the King of kings kept the gifts like a treasure. There’s a monastery in Greece where are kept, it is said, the very same gifts the young parents received from the kings of the East.

But even if there was no such place, and no such original gifts preserved, I would still think the man and the woman cherished what the Zoroastrian priests brought for the Holy Child.

That’s probably the reason why Santa Claus, the gift-giver, is an eternal figure of a friend and patron.

You call him Sinterklaas in Holland, or Father Christmas, Christindl, Pere Noel, Babbo Natale, Grandfather Frost, even Kerstman in the Netherlands, or Shengdan Laoren in China.

Belief in Santa Claus is modeled after the worship of a saint, St. Nicholas (Hagios Nikolaos in Greek), bishop of Myra (part of modern-day Turkey), who is revered by Catholics and Orthodox Christians. He’s said to have been a gift-giver, one who gave in secret, such as put coins in shoes for those who put them out for him.

You would accept from St. Nicholas a thoughtful gift, but how about a gift of money?

Anton, for one, is not the type who’d know what to buy if he were, instead, given money as a gift. By appreciating gifts, not money, you might say that, without his knowing it, Anton is pointing up to the goodwill of man.

There was this experiment undertaken by economic teachers in a school where a number of students were given mugs as gifts while another batch of the same number was given money with which to buy their mugs. In the process of identifying value put on the mugs, the students were asked to auction their mugs—those given to them as gifts and the mugs bought.

Those students who were given the mugs put higher value on what they got. Those who themselves bought their mugs
measured them low in value.

In gifts, not in money, is accepted the goodwill of the giver. Here comes the Three Kings.

(bird_song2002@hotmail.com)

For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here.

(Januar 4, 2009 issue)
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