Little House Meditation

This is my 2009 submission for our church advent booklet:


I have always loved the Little House books, ever since Mrs. Clausen read them to us each day after lunch in third grade. I have read them to my own kids in our school. I have probably read them aloud seven or eight times now. The Ingalls family always "kept Christmas" in simple, warm ways:

"Ma!" [Laura] cried. "There is a Santa Claus isn't there?"

"Of course there's a Santa Claus," said Ma. She set the iron on the stove to heat again.

"The older you are, the more you know about Santa Claus," she said. "You are so big now, you know he can't be just one man, don't you? You know he can't be everywhere on Christmas Eve. He's in the big Woods, in Indian Territory, and far away in York State, and here. He comes down all the chimneys at the same time. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, Ma," said Mary and Laura.

"Well," said Ma. "Then you see..."

"I guess he is like the angels," Mary said slowly. and Laura could see that, just as well as Mary could.

Then Ma told them something else about Santa Claus. He was everywhere, and besides that, he was all the time. Whenever anyone else was unselfish, that was Santa Claus.

Christmas Eve was when everyone was unselfish. On that night Santa Claus was everywhere, because everybody, all together, stopped being selfish and wanted other people to be happy. And in the morning you saw what that had done.

"If everyone wanted everyone else to be happy, all the time, then would it be Christmas all the time?" Laura asked, and Ma said, "Yes, Laura." -On The Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder

And that is Christmas-unselfishness. Living for Christ, as the real Santa Claus (Saint Nicholas) did, should make us unselfish. We should daily become more like Jesus, who was unselfish enough to come to earth to be born and then die for us.