The Story of a Boy and His Candy Cane

Sunday mornings have changed significantly for Jack this year. Instead of spending two plus hours in the nursery, he now delights in an hour of Sunday School, twenty minutes of worship time with his parents and another half hour of Children's Church. Needless to say, the worship time with mom and dad is NOT his favorite part of the morning (we're working on that) and he's always anxious to get to Children's Church. Before we let him go, however, we require him to stay for the children's sermon. All the children go to the front of the sanctuary to listen to the pastor give a short lesson related to the topic that week. This past Sunday, our pastor told the kids he had a gift for them but they would need to reach into his heart to get it. In an attempt to clarify his meaning (perhaps there were twenty little horrified faces staring back at him) he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out..."A CANDY CANE," someone yelled. Then another little boy (I won't name any names, but said boy may or may not have previously appeared on this blog) piped up with, "I already have a candy cane so I don't need one." And yet another boy (this one truly anonymous) chimed in with, "I'll take two."

If I happened to be the parent of the little boy who "already had one," I might be inclined to trick myself into thinking the contentedness of one candy cane for the boy was a result of a wonderful upbringing (thus far) on the part of the parents. However, given that I may or may not be the parent of that boy, I might also know that this incident was actually a result of the boy just beginning to understand the traditions of Christmas and not realizing that multiple candy canes are often made available to children. In fact, I may or may not know that the same boy often wants to give his toys away so that he can have new and slightly different versions of the same toys. Still, if I was the parent of the boy, I would probably have felt proud of the generous spirit he demonstrated and might have shown him a little too much affection because of it. The boy may or may not have been embarrassed.