A WORD (OR TWO HUNDRED) FROM THE EDITOR

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, the merchandising industry kicks into high gear, flooding homes with messages of must-have gifts of the season, luring customers into stores with promises of the lowest prices and the best selection ever.

Even little children are not immune. “My daughter has a list this long for Santa,” said a young mother recently, with a smile.

The pressure is relentless. One has to buy-buy-buy, or risk being seen as a Scrooge. And so we sometimes forget that the best gifts of all are simple. That a child will derive endless hours of fun from an empty carton – sitting in it, on it, placing his treasures in it to keep them safe, pushing it around as a train – whereas the most fancy toys will hold his interest only until the next fancy one is unwrapped.

Not splurging doesn’t make parents miserly, it goes a long way in teaching children how to value the things that last. This sweet tale sent to me by Santosh Shetty is a timely reminder.

Somewhere in Victorian England, you can imagine the snow-swept doorway of an accountant’s thriving business which has been in the family for generations. His main offices are in an old building, and his clients walk up a single, elegant marble step to reach the front door. Over time, the marble step wore down until it developed a deep dent that was increasingly hazardous to his clientele.

The accountant asked a stonemason to give him a quote on how much a new marble step would cost. The stonemason examined the step, scratched his head, and said, “It’s a big job. But I suppose I could give you a new step for 100 pounds”.

The accountant frowned. “That’s a bit more than I wanted to pay.” They both looked at the step, and then the accountant asked: “What if you dug up the step, turned it over, and put it back into the ground? Then it would be good as new.”

The stonemason nodded. “20 pounds.”

“Do that,” said the accountant, and he went back inside the office.

A few hours later the stonemason rang the bell. The accountant walked to the door, opened it, and saw the stonemason standing next to the marble step that he’d dug out of the ground, a nearly identical dent gutted on the other side.

The stonemason chuckled. “From the looks of it, I’d say your great-great-great-granddaddy thought of the same thing about 150 years ago.”

The accountant, now also laughing, said, “Perhaps the combination of cleverness and frugality are strong enough to endure across generations.”

We learned how to do with less over the months of the pandemic, to think about those who have less. That’s a gift that can keep on giving.

Merry Christmas!

Shagorika Easwar