Gifts for Madge and Guy

Christmas is one of the busiest times of the year in Odyssey, and at Whit's End the holiday spirit is in full swing. John Avery Whittaker, Connie Kendall, Tom, and Officer Harley are wrestling a very large tree through a very narrow door, and once they finally get it standing, Whit sends everyone off to the decoration boxes with a promise that they will all gather to put the star on top when the work is done.

While the trimming goes on, an argument bubbles up. Two of the kids, one of them named Lisa, have been trying to pick out a Christmas present for a friend, and they cannot agree on a single idea. Everything they can afford, the friend would not like, and everything the friend would like, they cannot afford. Whit asks whether it isn't the thought that counts, but Connie says nobody really believes that anymore, since everyone feels a little let down when a hoped-for present never shows up. Officer Harley agrees. He has never quite recovered from the year he wanted a platinum-plated traffic whistle and got a plain chrome one instead. Whit suggests that the real trouble is that most people would rather be the one receiving than the one giving, and when Connie insists that receiving is simply more fun, he answers with a story.

Madge and Guy, Whit explains, are a young married couple who are very much in love and very, very poor. On the day before Christmas, Madge counts out every cent she owns and comes up with one dollar and eighty-seven cents, which is nowhere near enough to buy her husband anything special. Her neighbor Ethel drops by and tries to help, suggesting Madge bake cookies to sell, or use the car for deliveries, or trade in a little furniture or jewelry. Each idea runs into the same wall, because Madge and Guy have already sold nearly everything they had to pay their bills. They have even sold the front porch, which is why the newspaper lands in the living room and why visitors keep needing a boost up to the door.

The newspaper does carry one useful item. A shop on Main Street called Pop's Top Notch Tops is buying hair, and Madge's long, silky hair falls almost to the floor. It is one of the two great treasures the couple owns. The other is Guy's antique gold watch, handed down through his family, with an ivory faceplate and a little melody that plays whenever the case is opened. Madge cannot bear to part with her hair, so she goes downtown instead, where she bumps into Morty Fishbine outside his family's jewelry store and spots a beautiful gold watch chain in the display window. It costs twenty dollars. Knowing exactly what she has to do, Madge walks straight to Pop's, takes off her hat, and sells her hair.

She talks her way into the already closed jewelry store, buys the chain, wraps it in wallpaper because the wrapping paper was sold long ago, and waits for Guy. He barely recognizes her at first, and he looks stricken when he understands what she gave up. Then he hands her his gift, a lovely set of tortoise shell combs with jeweled rims that she has admired for years and never dreamed of owning. Madge opens the wallpaper package, and Guy has no watch to hang on the chain. He sold it to buy the combs. The two of them laugh, forgive each other, and head out hand in hand to split a very small cheeseburger with the few cents they have left, more in love than ever.

Whit admits the tale is not his own. It comes from a writer called O. Henry, who titled it The Gift of the Magi, and Whit has simply moved a few things around. The point, he says, is that Madge and Guy were each willing to sacrifice their most prized possession for the other, and neither expected anything in return. That is what true giving looks like.

Then the star goes on the tree, and Whit reminds everyone that a star like it once led the wise men to Bethlehem, where they brought gifts to the baby Jesus. Some people credit those travelers with inventing Christmas presents, but Whit points to someone earlier. God gave first, sacrificing what He loved most, His own Son, so that people could receive the greatest gift of all.