Here it is, friends! This year’s Christmas story has finally arrived! But if you’re short on time (trying to finish your wrapping or baking?!) and would rather listen as I read this story, you can check out the video at the end.

Merry Christmas! I pray you have a wonderful Christmas celebrating the birth of our Savior, the One who came to save us all. Thank you, Jesus.

Missing Christmas

Reginald T. Flegenheimer hobbled across the grocery store parking lot and glared at anyone making eye contact. He was in no mood to be friendly or pretend like he felt the Christmas spirit, not when the world had stolen it from him.

“Commercialized. All of it,” he mumbled as he spotted a Christmas tree in the foyer wearing an assortment of gift cards for sale. “Hmph. They don’t even use ornaments these days.”

Reggie, as most called him, sneered as an employee wearing an ugly sweater passed by, greeting him with a cheerful, “Happy holidays!” He was a few steps away from “Bah humbugging” himself right out of there, but he needed a loaf of bread and a ham slice for his dinner. So, he moved on and did all he could to avoid elbowing the obnoxious well-wisher out of his way.

Thankfully, Reggie didn’t need a cart, so he avoided the crowd waiting to pull one free from the lineup. Still, there would be no zipping through the aisles. Not with his bad knee acting up. The cold weather usually taunted his osteoarthritis like a bratty kid using a stick to poke at a dog, so Reggie knew there would be no hurrying to the bread aisle.

“Excuse me, but can you give me a hand?”

The voice caught him off guard, nearly making him trip while twisting his good knee in the process. A petite woman with pleading eyes waited.

Reggie frowned. “Are you talking to me?”

The woman appeared to shrink in her wool coat. “Uh. Yes. If you don’t mind reaching that last jar of marshmallow fluff for me?”

The white jar squatted far away from the edge of the shelf, so Reggie didn’t know if he could reach it. He didn’t care if he couldn’t, really. Still, His father had taught him to be respectful and help a lady if she needed a hand, but he never said he had to be jolly while rescuing a damsel in distress’s jar of gloppy sugar. He huffed a few times, pushed up his sleeve, and leaned into the shelves, stretching as far as his arm would allow. His fingertips grazed the jar, pushing it back further on the shelf. As he grunted and squirmed, the woman sighed.

“I really appreciate your help. My granddaughter is coming to visit, and I hope—”

“I can’t get it, lady, so you can just stop you’re hoping,” he snapped.

Suddenly, a tall, lanky fellow appeared at the far end of the aisle and hurried toward Reggie.

“Hey, let me get that for you!” The young man reached up and grabbed the jar without straining or complaining and handed it to Reggie. “Here you go.”

“Do I look like someone who would buy this stuff? It’s for her,” Reggie said, passing it along to the woman.

“Oh, thank you,” the woman said, touching the young man’s forearm. “You’re such a dear. Merry Christmas.” She walked off as her rescuer trailed behind, wishing her a merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year, while Reggie stood dumbfounded that neither had said a kind word to him.

“I sure miss the good old days of Christmas when folks appreciated your help,” he said to no one in particular before heading after his bread.

He turned the corner, and, just his luck, two women wearing scarves and way too much perfume stood directly in front of the shelved bread, fawning all over each other and exclaiming for the whole world to hear how they hadn’t seen each other in years. Reggie shook his head, loudly called out, “Excuse me!” as more of a warning than a common courtesy, and shoved his way in between them to the essential staple he needed for his morning toast.

Before long, he’d found his ham slice and stood in the checkout line behind a disheveled mom with what looked like a Cheerio in her hair, a baby in a car seat, and a cart full of groceries.

“Great,” he mumbled. He didn’t know how long either of his old knees could stand all this, well, standing around, so he shifted his weight and stated his opinion, hoping to catch the cashier’s attention.

“I don’t know why there’s only one register open this time of year. Makes no sense to me.”

But instead of getting a response from the woman at the register, a soft voice spoke from behind. “You can always use one of the self-checkout lanes. They’re open.”

Reggie turned to the youthful face with ridiculously long eyelashes and a nose piercing that reminded him of his granddaughter, the one who always rolled her eyes at him.

He scowled. “I can’t use those self-checkouts, and I shouldn’t have to. Nonsense, if you ask me. Bagging your own groceries. Back in my day, stores took care of the customer and didn’t make him work on his own dime.”

The young woman smiled, and Reggie felt foolish for ranting.

“Hey, Aubrey!”

Reggie spotted the young lad who’d helped with the marshmallow fluff pulling on a camouflage coat as he headed toward the exit.

“You working tomorrow?” he called out.

The girl behind Reggie, Aubrey, it seemed, yelled back. “Yeah. I’ll be here.”

She sighed and, for no particular reason, decided to share with Reggie. “That Nathan is such a good guy. He works all the time and goes to school in the evenings. Trying to get his GED. He dropped out of high school to take care of his grandma. She just passed away last month.”

Reggie’s stomach turned. He thought about saying what a shame that was but stopped when Aubrey got this strange smile. Moments later, she spoke again.

“There goes Mrs. Witmeyer. Nicest lady in town.”

Reggie watched as the woman at the front of the line began pushing her cart of bagged groceries toward the door. It was the woman with the marshmallow fluff.

Aubrey chuckled. “She’s so excited to see her granddaughter this year. Her son went through a real bad divorce and hasn’t been able to bring his little girl home for Christmas for the past two years. Mrs. Witmeyer is hoping to make fudge with her since she loved doing that the last time she visited.”

Feeling like a heel, Reggie dropped his chin. When he lifted his eyes to Aubrey, he noticed her smiling again. He looked away and muttered.

“What was that?” she asked.

“I said I wish I wouldn’t have been so grumpy to her, that’s all.” Reggie inched closer to the register, placing his ham and bread on the conveyor belt.

Aubrey smiled again, but this time, Reggie erupted. “I don’t know what you’re smiling about. Are you poking fun or something? I know you think I sound like an old fool. I’m just missing Christmas, the way it used to be. People being kind to each other and knowing it’s not about them or the money. Everything is so commercialized. Makes me wonder what Jesus Christ would think. Bet He’d be madder than me.”

Aubrey’s mouth hung open slightly before she answered. “Uh, ok. First, I wasn’t looking at you or making fun of what you were saying. I was busy watching that cute baby in front of you.” Aubrey waved to the cooing baby girl with drool on her chin and one proud bottom tooth. “Second, I don’t pay any attention to the money stuff around Christmas. I know it’s there, but I don’t focus on it.”

Reggie noticed a slight shimmer from the tiny silver cross hanging from her neck.

“And as for Jesus,” she said, “I’m not sure if He would be angry, but I think He might be pretty sad that people miss seeing the good that’s around them. Sometimes right in front of them.”

Reggie’s face flushed as his cheeks burned from shame. He turned away from Aubrey, unknowingly locking eyes with the bright blue eyes of the baby in front of him. A baby, he thought, like the newborn baby in the manger. He wondered if he had been alive then if he would have missed the Savior, walking right past the stable and grumbling about the weather or the crowd. How many times had he missed what God was doing around him as if he wore blinders, only seeing what he found to be irritating? He was missing Christmas and the love of His Savior reaching out to him from those all around.

He closed his eyes and whispered, “Lord, forgive me, and help me to see the good.”

When he opened his eyes, the baby girl in her car seat offered a nearly toothless wet grin while reaching for her toes and giggling as her mom pulled the cart away and toward the exit.

“How sweet,” Aubrey said from behind.

“She was a little cutie,” Reggie admitted.

“No, not that. It’s just, well, it looks like you’re not the only one who thinks the customer should be taken care of.”

“What are you talking about?” Reggie asked.

“Sir,” the cashier said. “That young woman just paid for your groceries. You’re all set to go.”

“Wait a minute. What? I can pay for my own groceries!” He yelled after the mom, who’d disappeared around the corner. Even if he tried, his knees would never allow him to catch up to her in the parking lot to pay her back.

The cashier leaned in. “Sir, it’s Christmas. She wanted to bless you.”

Reggie’s voice caught. “Me? But why?”

The cashier smiled. “I guess she didn’t want you to miss out on a little kindness this Christmas.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I almost did. I almost missed out on giving a little kindness.”

So, before he shuffled away with a grocery bag holding his loaf of bread and ham slice, Reginald T. Flegenheimer handed the cashier a wad of bills to cover Aubrey’s groceries and those behind her with instructions to keep it going as long as the money lasted.

“I’ll keep it going,” the cashier whispered with a wink.

Reggie nodded and whispered back. “Me too.”

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