The Gift of the Magi

I remember being required (compelled) to read The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry when I was in school.  It was OK.  It was a little moralistic.  It demonstrated that all happy endings do not look alike.  I did alright on the test.  I moved on.

Funny thing, though.  If I listed all of the pieces of literature I read while in school, the number would be quite high.  (Not nearly as high as some readers I know, but that’s another story.)   But, truth be known, I don’t think about most of those books and stories nearly as often as I think of O. Henry’s work.  It is not that I quote the book in every sermon.  I don’t reference it in each conversation I hold.  But I have never eluded it.  The gift is not the watch chain, or the combs.  It is love.

A lot of people classify this as a Christmas story.  I am not here to quibble with that.  But I observe that the action, the tension of the story occurs immediately prior to December 25.  So, I think of it as an Advent story.  And I read it again this year.

You can read the story here.