AND ONE SHOE --- & ---THREE KINGS OF ORIENT ARE

You have to bear with me, tonight.  I have a story to tell you that will not wait.  It turns out that it is a "foreign" Christmas story.  I know that you're wondering why I have suddenly lost touch with reality.  Christmas was twelve days ago.  So tonight we celebrated the twelfth day of Christmas, the coming of the Three Kings.  In Theology speak, the Epiphany. It was at a prayer meeting with about 15 people sitting around a table.  Eleven of them Mexicans.  Some of them well educated and middle class US people.  Nine of the eleven speak very good English.  Everyone understands it. This was a short prayer meeting and a "potluck" celebration of the  "Rosca de Reyes."   Click there and spare me the trouble of the explanation.  After the prayer, we started to eat and the sharing talk became very personal and very nostalgic.  You see, the 6th of January is traditionally the gift exchange day in Mexico.  I don't have to tell you where this is going.  You already know that this is where I say, here is the winning story of the night.  It was told by the simplest person in the group.  The one who speaks and understands the least English.  Two more parts to this: a] the story; b] final comment.  Needless to say, this is a paraphrase, not a translation from the original Spanish.
We were very poor.  Neither I nor my siblings ever received gifts at the "Three Kings."  My cousins who lived close by (Close is a relative term.  This is ranch country.) always received gifts.  We were always told that they would put one of their shoes outside the front door and that Jesus would come during the night and give them a gift. We would put our shoes out too but there was never any gift.  My mother always said that Jesus didn't come to our house because we were too poor and the house was not nice enough for Him.  But as she was telling us that she was preparing a better breakfast than we usually had.  One year when I was about four or five my mother gave me the stiff broom and told me to go make the property on front of the house so smooth that Jesus Himself could eat off it.  Not a loose pebble nor a tiny twig should be there to bother the feet of Jesus.  She told me to make it perfect.  I did.  She was happy and she said that Jesus would be happy too. I put out my shoe. I didn't sleep.  Dawn came, I ran to open the door.  Nothing.
I was crushed, but didn't say anything to my mother.  I came to the conclusion that Jesus had not come because I had been rude and forgot to leave the door open a bit in a sign of hospitality.  Believe me, I knew what I had to do the next year.  I didn't even say anything to my cousins who, of course had received some toys in their shoe.  I just knew what to do.
Next year, same routine, clean yard, clean shoe and don't forget, be polite and leave the door open a little bit.  Dawn after a sleepless night.  Door open.  Mother preparing breakfast, empty shoe.  I'm crushed, but I am also determined.  I tell my mother that next year, after I sweep the yard to an immaculate condition, I was going to aunty's house for the night before the coming of Jesus.  My mother just clucked and forgot about it.  I did not.  Next year, after all the preparation at our house, I told my mother that I was going to sleep at the other house where Jesus is not afraid to come.  She tried her best to dissuade me, but that was futile.  Off  I went.  The yard over there was not as clean as mine, but there was no way that I could clean it because I was exhausted.  I put out my shoe. They put out their shoes.  I noticed that they closed the door completely.  I was so tired that I slept despite myself.  The next morning I joined all my cousins and went out.  They all had toys.  I had none.  I thought that I was going to die.  Jesus had passed me over.  There was no toy in my shoe. I had to try my best to be brave.  My aunt didn't say anything but turned to cooing and humming to me while hugging me to console me.  I consoled myself by thinking that I hadn't gained anything but I had not lost anything since I had never received a toy as a gift in my life.  I took breakfast with the family and soon thereafter turned to return home.  When I put my shoe on my foot, it was clear to me that there was something different inside.  I looked.  There was money there for me.  Jesus wasn't expecting me...Hmmm.  I still wasn't completely happy.  I wanted a toy.  I went home and told the story to my mother and I capped it off with my conclusion:  Jesus doesn't come.  Parents give their children the toys.  I never get toys because you make an effort to give us a better breakfast for the Three Kings.
I remember my mother looking at me, somewhat sadly but somewhat relieved too.  She told me something that I'll never forget.  "Oh, my child, Jesus does come and every year He gives us something that he doesn't give other people because He gives something different to us all.  We don't know what it is, but we do know that whatever it is it's more precious than toys."  I never again felt the need to go to my aunt's house for the Three Kings.
Every year, for a few more, I swept the yard to immaculate condition, put my shoe outside, closed the door and slept very well.  I have been sleeping well ever since.
The story told by a simple woman with simple words in a sincere and prayerful manner is the second best story of its kind that I know.  The First best is one that I lived.  It is one that the five of us at 1 Hartford Street lived together.  I avoided telling it for Christmas 2010 and postponed it again this year.  I find it interesting that the two best such stories do not have me as the focal point.  Even more interesting, I guess, is that they are so sincere and so true even though they took place on opposite sides of the continent.  One to a middle class teenager and the other to a poor ranch hand's daughter.  I have seen just a very small fraction of the world, but I am still convinced that the more different we are the more we are the same.