The Year of the Christmas Miracle

     There are only two ways to live your life. 
      One is as though nothing is a miracle.
     The other is as though everything is a miracle.
     --Albert Einstein

At dinner last night, my brother and I got talking about a very special Baxter Christmas: The Year of the Christmas Miracle.

It was just after the turn of the century (doesn't that sound quaint?), when Malcom in the Middle was on TV and George W. Bush was in the White House. Now kids, at this time, USB jump drives were rather new and much more expensive than they are now, and my brother’s Christmas list included just such a drive. He knew he’d be getting it; he helped our mom pick it out so it would be just the one he was hoping for.

At some point before Christmas, likely during finals week, John needed the jump drive for a school project, so he asked if he could get his Christmas gift early and take it to his apartment. Mom said he could, as long as he'd bring it back so she could wrap it up and put it under the tree for him to open Christmas morning.  It was, after all, his main present that year (remember, jump drives were relatively pricey at the time). 

Then it was Christmase Eve. Mom and I were wrapping presents, and when we came to the empty packaging, she called John to remind him to bring it over with him when he came that evening. But he arrived empty handed. The jump drive was lost. He was sure it was in his room somewhere, probably on the bed, tucked safely among the covers. He said he looked and looked, but he just couldn’t see the pesky little device.

“Oh well,” we thought. “At least we know where it is, even if it’s not under the tree.” We decided to wrap up the empty jump drive packaging anyway, just to add a little more bulk under the Christmas tree and to give John a gift to open -- even if it was empty. We laughed a bit together about wrapping an empty package, and continued on with our Christmas Eve family traditions.

The next morning, we handed my brother his present, and he laughed again that we’d wrapped up the empty packaging. And then he opened it. And guess what was inside? 

The missing jump drive! No one knew how it got there.* 

It was a Christmas Miracle!! 

(*Actually, turns out my brother found it that night after we’d all gone to bed. He had carefully unwrapped the gift, inserted the drive into its packaging, and replaced the wrapping paper. A really fun Christmas surprise, to be sure. And I still like to think of it as our own little Christmas Miracle.)