We’re nearing the end of our series looking at the lyrics to the song “A Song and a Christmas Tree” (Andy Williams’ spin on “Twelve Days of Christmas”). You can take each of the twelve gifts given in the song and find spiritual application.

The eleventh gift given is “gift for one and all” which is exactly what many of us will be opening in a few days.

My mother had a saying when I was growing up: “Birthdays are for what you need; Christmas is for what you want.” As such I always looked forward to the food on my birthday (which was usually a chocolate cake with white icing) more than I did the presents on my birthday (which was usually jeans or shoes or something). Come Christmas, however, I had every good reason to be excited.

It’s just that Christmas was such a long way away when I was growing up.

Even when it was a week away, it felt like a month. Come January, I would already be daydreaming about sitting under the tree, staring at my presents of green and red and wondering what was in them. But for a kid in January, Christmas was not eleven months away; it was eleven years!

That’s why I’m glad, as a Christian, I can be the blessed recipient of God’s good gifts, not just one day a year, but all of the time. God the Heavenly Father gives gifts regularly, impartially, bountifully and liberally. He offers gifts to one and all, and the best gift of all is His gift of salvation. What’s great about that is, it’s a gift given to us when we were not good. When we were disobedient and hateful, God looked us over, wrote down that we’d all been naughty and none of us had been nice, but still gave us His great gift anyway.