The Christmas Surprise

“Careful,” Eva repeated for the third time.

Andy grunted. “I am being—”

Crash!

A cardboard box marked “FRAGILE” slipped from Andy’s hands, spilling its contents onto the basement floor. There were icicle ornaments, sleigh bells, electric candles, and two wise men. Andy breathed a sigh of relief. “At least that wasn’t the important box.”

A few weeks ago, Grandma Wander had given the family several boxes full of Christmas decorations when she moved to a smaller home. Most of it would stay packed up, but tonight, Dad had tasked the kids with finding the one decoration that was most special to him—the Christmas star.

Eva opened another box marked “CANDYCANES.” Unsurprisingly, it contained a bunch of candy canes. Andy unwrapped one and stuck it in his mouth.

“Ew!” Eva said. “That’s gotta be, like, 30 years old!”

“Tastes like it,” Andy replied before giving it one more lick just to be sure. “Hey, what’s this?” He tugged at something wrapped in tissue paper just below the candy canes. The kids carefully opened the tissue paper and discovered a star. A very ugly star.

Eva wrinkled her nose. “Is this it?”

The decoration appeared to be Dad’s first woodshop project. It was a star-shaped box glued together at odd angles and adorned with globs of green and white paint.

“Mom’s never gonna let him put this on the tree,” Andy said.

“She still puts your clay sheep on the tree.”

“That’s ’cause it’s beautiful.”

“It looks like a used tissue.”

“Mom says it’s priceless since I made it.”

“Right, and this is priceless to Dad since he made it.” Eva picked up the star and turned toward the stairs. “Now, let’s—”

Crash!

Art by David Leonard

She tripped over the box Andy had spilled earlier. The star lay on the ground with one of its points cracked off.

“Uh oh!” Andy said in a mocking tone. “That’s priceless!”

“It’s not funny!” Eva scrambled to pick up the pieces. “Dad’s gonna be so upset, and it’s all my fault!”

“Hey, don’t worry about it! We can fix it.”

“How? We can’t glue it. It would take too long to dry. He’s gonna come looking for us any minute.”

Andy turned to Dad’s workbench and dug through one of the drawers. He held up a nail. “Let me put it back together.”

Eva gladly handed over the star.

Andy lined up the pieces and smiled. “See? This is gonna be perfect. I just need you to hold it in place while I nail this, okay?”

“Okay.”

Crack!—he shattered the star into even more pieces.

Andy swung the hammer. But instead of driving the nail through the wood—crack!—he shattered the star into even more pieces.

“What did you do?” Both kids screeched at the same time.

“Everything okay down there?” Mom called.

“Yuppers!” Andy yelled back. Then, he turned to Eva and hissed, “Why did you move it?”

“I didn’t!” she said. “Why did you swing so hard?”

“I didn’t!”

The kids surveyed the damage. Now, the bottom third of the decoration lay shattered in big chunks, revealing a metal support rod inside the star.

“We can do this,” Eva finally said.

Andy looked at his sister in disbelief.

“I’m serious! I have a bunch of clay down here. We’ll mold it around the metal, then stick the pieces to the clay. It won’t be perfect, but I think it’ll be close enough to make Dad feel better.”

Andy shrugged. “Let’s give it a shot.”

The kids turned the star face-down and used the clay to stick the pieces back in place. Eva turned out to be right. It wasn’t quite as good as new, but since the star wasn’t exactly a work of art to begin with, their efforts seemed good enough. When Eva smooshed in the final piece, she held up the star. “Now this is what I call—AHHH!”

Andy screamed too when he noticed what Eva was looking at. The paint on the side of the star that had been pressed against the table was now cracked and smashed.

“Get the paint.” Eva huffed.

“Come on, Eva.” Andy tried taking the star out of his sister’s hands.

Eva clutched tighter. “Get the—”

“What’s going on?” Dad asked.

“AHHH!” The kids had been so focused on the star that they didn’t hear their father walking down the stairs. They both turned at the same time, causing the star to fly out of their hands and crash to the floor.

Smash!

Eva ran to her father and buried her head in his chest. “I’m so sorry!”

Dad looked bewildered at the broken pieces on the floor. “What is that?”

“It’s your star!”

Dad squinted at the mess on the ground. “No, it’s not.”

Andy shook his head sadly. “It might not look like it anymore, but that’s the star.”

“My childhood star was glass. I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a Star-Crossed Surprise!” Mom exclaimed from the stairs.

“What?” everyone asked.

“Don’t you remember these?” Mom asked Dad as she jogged down the stairs. “My family used to get one every year. The star’s made of gingerbread.”

“We thought it was wood!” Andy exclaimed.

“That’s because the gingerbread’s so old. Back when these were popular, you had to eat the gingerbread to reach the surprise inside.”

“What surprise?”

Mom bent over and pulled out the metal rod from the squashed remains of gingerbread and frosting. Eva and Andy gasped. It wasn’t a support beam. It was a silver cross!

“That’s beautiful!” Eva exclaimed.

“I love this,” Mom said. “It reminds me so much of God’s plan.”

Andy nodded until he realized that what she had said made no sense at all. “Wait, what?”

“As humans, we are hopeless in our sin,” Mom explained. “Every time we try fixing things on our own, we just make the situation worse.”

The kids stared at the mess on the ground.

“That first Christmas probably felt messy, too. Jesus’ birth might have felt imperfect to Mary and Joseph. But God had a beautiful plan all along. Jesus arrived in the manger, but the plan was leading him to die on the cross for our sin and rise from the grave.”

“Speaking of mess.” Dad gave the kids a sideways glare and smirked. “I can’t believe you thought that ugly thing was my star!”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Eva gently took the metal cross out of Mom’s hand. “It looks pretty priceless to me.”

What’s the Point?

After Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden of Eden, sin and death entered creation as punishment for their sin. But God promised to send a Savior. Jesus’ birth reminds us that, although things are imperfect, God offered a way to redeem us through the death, burial, and resurrection of his Son when we turn from our sin and receive his salvation. And he even promises to one day recreate a perfect heavens and earth. We can trust his plan.