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I found this posted while looking for Christmas Stories to feature on The Morning Show on WMOX. I liked it so much I decided to post it here. Enjoy.
Three Christmas Gifts
By Mildred Goff
The wise men brought three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
This Christmas, try adding three gifts to your list. Yes, I know your Christmas gift list is already overly long, that you have neither time nor money for extra gifts. But these will cost you little in time, and less in money, and they will capture for you the true Christmas spirit so often lost in the rush and flurry of the season.
First gift: to a stranger. This might be a note to the bus company, mentioning that bus driver who is unfailingly pleasant and courteous, even under the most trying conditions. Send a Christmas card to the waitress who is so cheerful and quick to serve you. Write a letter to the author whose book, story, or poem you have enjoyed recently. Drop a note to the department store whose windows entice you, with a word of praise for the work of the window dresser. You can think of many more. Choose at least one.
Second gift: to someone you find it hard to like, or someone you feel does not like you very much. It might be your cross old great-aunt, or a sharp-tongued cousin; perhaps it is a business associate who annoys you, or an irritable neighbor. Send a small, inexpensive, but thoughtful gift to one in this group. It might be no more than a clipping or an article about some hobby for the neighbor; a magazine you know she would enjoy for the cranky relative. Remember, it is easy to give to those we love, but God’s love includes the whole world.
Third gift: to someone in trouble. Think of those enduring a cheerless old age, who would be so grateful for an unexpected caller. There are many in hospitals who have no one to visit them, to read to them, to talk to them. And consider those in prisons; yes, we are told we should visit them, too. An hour spent with one of these lonely and half-forgotten persons will do much for them, and more for you.
This Christmas, give these three gifts. You will be repaid a thousand-fold.
Improvement Era
Dec. 1957;
Christmas Classics p. 95
This story and many more were written by my grandmother Mildred Goff. She started writing when she was very young and sold her first poem when she was just 16 years old for $1.00. Times have changed, and it makes my heart happy to know that people are still reading and referring to her stories and poems. She was quite a remarkable woman, having had 5 children and raised 4 of them, having one died in infancy. She was widowed at a young age, but continued her education going to college when she was in her 50’s. She continues to be an influence in my life, and the lives of others in our family, and I am currently compiling a book of around 500 poems she wrote in her lifetime. She was born in 1898 and passed away in December of 1985 in Ventura CA where she was instrumental in starting the Ventura Writers Club as well as being a member of that club and of Toastmistresses up till the time of her death. She was still writing new poems in the same year of her death with the last one being “Sunshine and Shadow.” My mother, Audrey Goff Shaffer compiled a book of her poems after her death, and named the book after that poem, but after my mother’s death in 2006 I came across some 400 or more poems that she had not put in that book, so I am going to make sure the rest of her poems are put into another book for her family and friends alike to read. If anyone is interested in having one of her books, please contact me at KATYJHNS @ aol . com and I will let you know how much the first book will be for you to have a copy of it, and also of the second book of poems once I am able to get it published in book form.
Mildred was born on a farm in Iowa, married her childhood sweetheart at just 16 abd was married some 25 years or more to George Goff till his death in 1945. She resided in Ventura, CA at the time of her death, and left her 4 living children of which one is still living in Clayton, CA. She has inspired myself as well as many other people to go into writing, and to this day, we still are inspired by her many poems and short stories. It is always exciting to see some of her works still being used by people who admired her work. Sincerely, Katherine A Johnson, grand daughter