Do you know the tale of The Gift of the Magi, the story turned a quiet century last year without much fanfare, but that is the nature of the story itself. O Henry wrote the story for the New York World in 1905. According to history, O Henry was notoriously late on submitting to his deadlines – it wasn’t until the artist came to him for the artwork that he even began thinking of the story he was doing.
The story, itself, of course is famous for the two desperately poor sweethearts who want to buy each other gifts for Christmas. He wants to buy her combs for her beautiful fall of hair and she wants to buy him a chain for the beloved pocket watch he always carries. They work very hard and on Christmas even they each present their beloved with the gifts, so carefully and preciously chosen.
As you may know, in the story – she sold her hair to buy the chain and he sold his watch to buy her the combs. They sacrificed that which was most loved by them for each other – and the gifts they wanted to give each other that Christmas Eve. The Gift of the Magi is about love and sacrifice and it’s a bittersweet reminder that objects are not as important as the people we know and that we love.
So this year marks the 101st birthday of this touching tale and I think it’s important that we take The Gift of the Magi to heart and that we put the people in our lives first and we make love a part of every gift. It’s important to remember charity, giving gifts that have meaning and caring for others and the treasure in giving a gift of such meaning makes us feel good too – so when you are out shopping for your spouse, your parents, your children and more – think less about the greatest hot gift out there and more about the gifts of love you can give.
What do you learn from The Gift of the Magi?
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