The True Spirit of Christmas

Blog Challenge:

What is your favorite grown-up Christmas memory?

I worked as administrative assistant to the store manager at a local thrift store for several years following my divorce.  A few years ago, Megan and I stopped by to visit with my former manager during the Christmas season.  While we were visiting in his office, one of the supervisors came in and said, "Luis Gonzalez is in the store!"

My in-laws are huge D-backs fans and Gonzo is their favorite player, so Megan knew immediately who was in the store.  She took off running to meet him.  Jeff and I followed and found him on the sales floor visiting with customers and signing autographs.  Megan pushed her way up front and had a lengthy conversation with him.  He was SO sweet to her and even signed an autograph so she could rub it in her sisters' faces that she had his autograph and they didn't.  Megan thought it was pretty neat that he has a daughter named Megan who is about her age.

Jeff asked Gonzo what brought him to the store.  He said, "We are just spreading Christmas cheer."  I looked around to see who he meant by "we" and saw a number of people in Santa hats wandering through the store, visiting with other customers.  One of them came up to Gonzo and said it was time to leave.  He graciously took his leave and left the store. 

Megan begged to go watch Gonzo leave.  I gave my permission as we were preparing to leave ourselves.  However, I made her promise to stay inside the store.  I said goodbye to Jeff and followed Megan.  As I arrived at the front of the store, I found Gonzo squatted down in front of Megan and he had clearly handed her something.  He looked at me, smiled, and wished me a Merry Christmas, then exited the store.  He and his friends had a police escort and one of the policemen handed me a card and explained that they were handing out $100 to folks to spread the spirit of Christmas.  Sure enough, Luis Gonzalez had handed Megan two $50 bills and told her to do something fun with her mom and sisters for Christmas!

The story could end there and be really amazing.  However, it gets better.  My dad had recently retired.  As his company planned his retirement party I had been contacted by one of dad's friends from work.  Alan and I had maintained an e-mail correspondence since then.  Alan and his wife had adopted two children shortly after Dad retired.  Two weeks later, he was laid off.  They have other children, too, and Alan had been unemployed for several months so money was tight and Christmas would be lean.  The same week that we met Luis Gonzalez, the girls were going to go with Grandpa and Grandma and deliver Christmas cookies to Alan and his family while I was at work.  Megan came to me and asked if she could give Alan's family one of her $50 bills.  She wanted to make sure his kids had something for Christmas.  She wanted to use the other $50 to go to Olive Garden with our family.

I agreed that this was a great idea.  We all signed a card and put the $50 inside.  I had sent out an e-mail to my friends to share the story of meeting Luis Gonzalez, so Alan knew the story.  When he opened the card from this little girl he had never met, he knew immediately where the money had come from.  He gave her a hug as his eyes filled with tears.  Megan had truly caught the spirit of Christmas.