Christmas Giving
I have no grandchildren
to whom to give the gifts
expected at Christmas time.
If I did, I would not give
what the shops lure them to want –
not electronic games, but clay
animals my hands have shaped,
baked in the sun; not Barbies
but hand-made dolls, knitted perhaps
and stuffed with carded wool
still smelling of sheep.
Would the childrens’ disgruntled politeness
smile their thanks, but consign my gifts
to the forgotten bottom of the toy box,
or would my love and theirs
give a greater value to these
than to commercial plastic?
Perhaps they might cradle my gifts,
touched that Grandma made them,
perhaps imagine stories like those
I surely would have read to them?
Would the dolls be Mary and Joseph,
the animals posed around
under a shoe box stable,
and would some gathered grass
support a swaddled bundle
with a soft toy’s face,
in lieu of God’s storied gift,
hand-made with love?
Could a grandma’s clumsy crafting
and her bed-time story-telling
clear aside commercial trappings
to make space for sacred birthing?
Barbara Messner 19/12/2024
Barb, poet priest 
A wonderful post and, as a Grandma of seven and nine year old boys … one year it goes one way and the next year the other way … but they keep the things I make and pull them out years later.
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I’m not good at present choosing, and the hand-made aspiration derives from our son’s past attendance at the Mt. Barker Waldorf School rather than present craft practices. Still I own the values expressed.
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And you express them well. I find the present giving the hardest part of Christmas to accept, both the giving and receiving. I often wish it were moved to 12th Night.
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