Who could I give my best to, not my leftovers?
Yesterday we gave time. Today's currency is resources: money, or something you own or buy.
Play "The Little Drummer Boy" today, any version your family likes. Katherine K. Davis, an American composer and music teacher, wrote it in 1941 under the title "Carol of the Drum." It became a hit after the Harry Simeone Chorale recorded it in 1958, and it has been a Christmas standard ever since.
The song tells a small story. A poor boy is told to come and see a newborn king. Everyone else is bringing their finest gifts, and he has nothing a king could use. So he asks if he can play his drum (that's what all the "pa rum pum pum pum" is), and he plays the very best he can. By the end of the song, the baby smiles at him.
The drummer boy isn't in Matthew's account or Luke's. He's a character from a 20th-century song, and the song works the way a parable does: he gives the best thing he has.
Mark tells a story about giving the best you have. A few days before Jesus died, a woman walked into a dinner in the village of Bethany with "an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume." She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of the guests were indignant: "Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." But Jesus said, "Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me."
In Hope week, the four bright doors were waste: motion that went nowhere. At Bethany, the onlookers used the same word for the opposite thing. To them, a gift that costly and that complete looked like waste. Jesus called it beautiful.
The drummer boy gave his best, and the woman at Bethany gave hers. Agape gives the best even when it looks foolish to everyone watching. It's the good coat instead of the old one, the new book instead of the one you've finished, the money you'd set aside for something you wanted. Those gifts cost more, and they tell a person how much they're worth to you.
Give it without your name if you can.
Today, give one person your best, not your leftovers.
Get out the plan from January 1, if your household made one, and choose the person.
Choose the gift: money, or something you own or buy. Pick the best one, not the spare one.
Deliver it without your name if you can: on a doorstep, through someone you trust, or by a payment made directly.
Kids' story: read "The Best Things" together, from The Overflow Adventure in Wanderful Woods.
Time: 20 to 45 minutes, depending on the gift.
With kids: ask, "What's one of your best things that someone else would be glad to have?" A child can choose a favorite toy or book in good shape to give, with a parent's help.
Good sense: a costly gift should still fit your household. Give your best, not money you need for rent.
Hello, my wonderful story friends! Last time, everybody spent the whole day fixing up Granny Mabel’s home, and Bruno washed everybody’s muddy feet, even the stinkiest ones, and last of all, Granny Mabel’s tiny ones. Today, the friends bring Granny Mabel presents.
What’s the very best thing you have? Let’s go see what the friends give.
The morning was cold again, and everything that had melted yesterday had frozen back up in the night. The puddles were ice. The mud was hard. And every twig had a tiny clear icicle hanging from it, like the whole woods had put on its jewelry.
The friends had decided to bring Granny Mabel presents. Not spare things. Not leftovers. Everybody’s very best thing. So everybody went home to find it, and they all met back in Sunny Square.
Mr. Monkey came with his yellow hat. It was the warmest, softest hat he had ever had. Mama Monkey had made it for him, and he wore it every single day. His ears felt cold already, just thinking about giving it away.
Mr. Moose came with his tall candle, the one Mama Moose had made for him, the best one, which he had been saving all winter for something special.
Hazel brought her very best ribbon, the shiniest blue one. Dottie brought her favorite ball. Ricky brought his very first jar, the one he found before any of the others. Shiloh brought a soft new piece of wool from his very best curl. Percy brought the little round mirror, his old friend.
And Bruno came carrying something enormous. It was his honeycomb. Not a piece. The whole thing. The biggest, goldest, drippiest honeycomb in the woods. He had been saving it since summer.
Ricky stared at it.
“Bruno,” said Ricky. “That’s your BEST honeycomb. That’s your WHOLE honeycomb. Granny Mabel is tiny. She can’t eat all that. You should keep most of it. Giving her all of it is a waste!”
Bruno looked at his honeycomb. Then he looked at Ricky.
“It’s my best,” said Bruno. “That’s why.”
Hazel looked down at her shiny blue ribbon. It was the one Percy gave back to her, the one she loved most of all. She held it in her teeth for a long time. Then she trotted over and laid it right on top of Bruno’s honeycomb, very carefully, so it wouldn’t get sticky.
It got sticky anyway.
“Hee hee hee… SNORT!” went Hazel. “Now it’s a honey ribbon!”
Dottie squeezed her favorite ball one last time, squeak, squeak, just to say goodbye. Then she dropped it on the pile and sat on her own paws, so they couldn’t sneak it back.
They took everything through the brambles to Granny Mabel’s on the sled. Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey pulled it in the harness. Step. Step. Step.
Granny Mabel opened her tiny door.
Mr. Monkey gave her his yellow hat. Granny Mabel was so small that when she put it on, it covered her completely, all the way down to her toes. Only her tail stuck out the bottom.
“Oh my,” said Granny Mabel, from somewhere inside the hat. “It’s very warm in here.”
“Hee hee hee!” went Mr. Monkey. “Granny Mabel, it’s not a hat for you! It’s a whole sleeping bag!”
Granny Mabel wiggled out of the bottom of it, her spectacles all crooked. “Then I’ll sleep in it,” she said. “Every night. Eek-eek-eek.”
Mr. Moose gave her his tall candle. It was taller than Granny Mabel. She stood it in her window, next to her little one.
Then Bruno tried to give her the honeycomb. He pushed it toward her tiny door. It didn’t fit. He turned it sideways. It still didn’t fit. He pushed a little harder, and it got stuck, right in the doorway, so the whole door was filled with honeycomb. Granny Mabel peeked out at them through one of the little honeycomb holes.
“Hello,” she said, from inside the honeycomb.
“Haw haw haw! Granny Mabel has a honey door!” went Bruno.
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Mr. Moose.
And Granny Mabel, behind the honeycomb, put her tiny paw out and touched it, and her eyes went soft. “Oh, Bruno,” she said. “That’s beautiful. That’s the most beautiful thing anybody has ever brought me.”
Then everybody gave their best things, one by one. Percy gave her his little round mirror. “He was my friend when I didn’t have any,” said Percy. “Now you can have him.” Granny Mabel looked into it and said, “Oh! Hello, dear,” to herself, very politely.
“Hee hee hee!” went Mr. Monkey. “Granny Mabel, that’s YOU!”
Sammy zipped up to the door with her best acorn and dropped it on the pile. “Why do bees have sticky hair?” she asked. “Because they use HONEYCOMBS!” And she was gone.
“Haw haw haw!” went Bruno, looking at his honeycomb.
And Granny Mabel held each gift and said thank you, softly, every time.
But Benji was standing at the back. He had his paws behind his back. And his ears were drooping all the way down.
Mr. Monkey went over. “Benji, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t have a best thing,” whispered Benji. “My family’s burrow is small. We don’t have a lot. Everything I had, I already gave away this winter.” His nose twitched. “I don’t have anything to give her.”
Mr. Monkey looked at him, and his chest hurt. Benji wanted to give so much. And he didn’t have anything to give.
Mr. Moose was thinking. What did Benji have? Benji had sharp ears. Benji was fast. And Benji had the best thumping foot in the whole woods. On the longest night, when everybody called across the river, Benji’s thump had been the loudest thing there.
“Benji,” said Mr. Moose. “You have your thump.”
Benji looked down at his foot.
Then he stepped up to Granny Mabel’s door, right in front of the honeycomb. He took a deep breath. And he started to thump.
Thump. Thump. Thump-a-thump. Thump. Thump. Thump-a-thump-a-thump.
It was a song. A drum song, played on the frozen ground with one small bunny foot, the very best he could. It went fast and then slow and then fast again. Bruno started patting his big round tummy along with it, bom, bom, bom-bom, like a big bass drum. Hazel’s hooves started tapping along. Dottie howled along, “Arooo!”, right on the beat.
Even Granny Mabel tapped her little stick on the floor, tik-tik, tik-tik, behind the honeycomb.
And when Benji finished with one last great big THUMP, Granny Mabel, behind the honeycomb, was smiling the biggest smile her little face could hold.
“Hee hee hee!” went Mr. Monkey. “Benji Boom-Boom!”
“Benji Boom-Boom!” shouted everybody.
“Hee hee,” went Benji, with his ears all the way up. He had given his best thing after all.
“What a day!” said Mr. Monkey, walking home with no hat on, and his ears a little bit cold. “Everybody brought their very best thing. My hat was Granny Mabel’s sleeping bag.
Bruno’s honeycomb got stuck in the door, and Granny Mabel talked through the holes. Ricky said it was a waste, but Bruno said that’s why. And Benji didn’t have anything, so he played his foot, and he’s Benji Boom-Boom.”
Mr. Monkey whistled, and Mr. Moose hummed, and together they sang:
We are better together,
Moose and Monkey forever.
And in the smallest home in Wanderful Woods, a tiny old mouse curled up that night inside a big yellow monkey hat, in the glow of a tall candle, with the sweet smell of honey drifting through the whole house.