The True Meaning of Christmas

A Short Story

Artwork by Rima Staines

For Gloria, Christmas was not the most wonderful time of the year. The only family she had was the garden gnomes that raised her, and they didn’t celebrate Christmas. They were not sure what to make of Jesus, and so they didn’t want to commit to anything too soon. Garden gnomes live a long time and have tremendous patience. Gloria, on the other hand, was just a girl, and she wasn’t so keen on waiting with them. When she was old enough to venture away from the garden, she packed her things and said goodbye. The gnomes loved her but they weren’t what you would call a clingy bunch. They wished her well and went back to their gardening and mischief.

Gloria’s first stop was a church. What better place was there to learn about Christmas? She took a seat in the back pew and sat for several hours. Compared to garden gnomes she was not patient, but compared to people she had the patience of a sloth. Eventually, a deacon came over to speak with her and to see if she was alright. She assured him that she was, and though he was perplexed by her odd and whimsical clothing, including a bright yellow pointed hat, it was clear that she was well fed and in no danger of going cold seeing as she was covered head to toe in strange, but warm, natural fiber garments.

She asked him about Christmas, and he gave the usual dissertation on the birth of the savior, Jesus Christ. The story itself was moving, but unsatisfying at the same time. She was drawn to Jesus, and the story of his birth, but there was more to it that was not being addressed. She asked about the lights, the Christmas trees, the decorations, the caroling, and gift giving. Christmas! But he only said something uninspired about the “commercialization of Christmas.” This would not do. Even the skeptical gnomes knew there was magic in those things, and that it went beyond making money, which no gnome thinks about anyway.

Her next stop was a store which seemed to be filled with Christmas things. Ornaments, holly, wreaths, garland, nativity scenes, and everything you could want to make your home feel like Christmas. She walked slowly through the store, and after a few hours a woman approached her and asked if she needed any assistance. So Gloria asked her about Christmas, but the store clerk gave a different sort of uninspiring answer. She mentioned how these things help fill our hearts with Christmas cheer, but when pressed on the meaning of such a thing, she only said it’s just something we do during the season, because it’s fun.

She continued to more churches, more stores, spoke with strangers and even a Santa Claus that was meeting children outside of a shop. It was clear from all of them that they themselves did not understand the kind of magic they were involved in. It should not have been surprising, she realized, having lived with gnomes her whole life. They did not have an analytical bone in their magical bodies and understood their magic just as little as these people understood Christmas. The gnomes also simply engaged in their magic without thought. There was no way around it, she realized. She must immerse herself in the Christmas magic.

It took awhile, but she finally found herself a nice place to make her Christmas home, right between two shops in a well decorated part of a quaint town. The two shops shared a wall, but she found it rather simple to fit between them, as she possessed a fair bit of gnomish magic. She built her house with branches from a nearby wood, which was undiscoverable to regular folk, and attached everything with vines, which were kind enough to grow for her, even in the harsh cold. It’s always good to have friends, and she, like her gnome companions, had many. Vines were just one of them. She also summoned some snowflakes and icicles to give her home that certain Christmas feel that she was after. A live nativity scene was easily made from a family of squirrels who were very much in the Christmas spirit.

She asked God to bless her new home and to show her the secret of Christmas, please and thank you. Once the halls were well decked, she spent the rest of the Nativity season making gifts for all of her friends, of which there were many more than you or I have, I can pretty much guarantee you that. Yet she found the time. Being raised by gnomes comes with many advantages, one of them being that they can teach you how to find more time, the hours and minutes hiding in between each other just like her home hid between two shops. Gnomes were masters of finding and creating nooks. There is always room, they would say.

She also baked Christmas cookies and sang Christmas carols to bewildered pedestrians. She could feel the Christmas spirit stronger than ever, but unlike her gnome counterparts, she was still not content to just feel. She wanted to know what Christmas was really all about. Tomorrow would be her best chance, she figured, being Christmas Day and all. She spent Christmas Eve wrapping the gifts she had made for all of her friends, and I’ll remind you again that she had many, many friends. The east wind, the morning dew, countless trees and birds, and much more still. When the clock struck midnight she went to each of them, one by one, and slipped a gift into a nook that she knew they would find it in. She signed the gifts simply “From the Spirit of Christmas,” which she felt was the most honest thing to write. She knew that the credit at least did not belong to her, who was simply grateful to be riding the wave of Christmas magic that carried her.

After a very long night of this, she returned home. She had been gone only an hour by the way you and I measure time, but that is hardly a good measure of her efforts which would feel to us closer to a lifetime. The next morning she was surprised to see a wrapped present under her Christmas tree, with her name on it. This was very odd, because she understood Christmas to be about giving, not getting, but then her human logic worked it out that with all of that giving there must be equal parts receiving.

She opened it carefully and found only a compass. It’s beautiful, she thought, and she tied it to a string and put it around her neck.

After twelve days of Christmas she noticed that her feet, as close as they were to it, no longer touched the ground. She was gliding, and her heart was full, but the mystery of Christmas was not any closer to being solved. Well, there was only one thing left for her to do, so she took out her compass and found True North, which is what is said in gold lettering at the top, and began her long journey northward.

Gloria found her way to True North, the North Pole, the center of the world for those that were closer to the deepest mysteries. The snow was as you’d expect, in large supply, but the ice structures were beyond comprehension. At the center of True North was a great mountain of ice, and at the top of that was a castle of twisting ice spires, though it lacked the usual fortifications. She headed toward the castle and was greeted by a man in red with a long white beard.

“Welcome home,” he said to Gloria. “You may never understand the mystery, and very few ever do, but you ‘get it’. Better than those with lofty ideas. Now you may live in the mystery, with us, forever.”

And she did.