The Most Romantic Gift Of The Magi

 

One of my favorite Christmas stories is “The Gift Of The Magi” by O’Henry.  While the story is too long to print here, I recently came across Garrison Keillor’s poetic interpretation of it.

Stories don’t get any more romantic than this!

Merry! Merry!

Gift of the Magi

by: Garrison Keillor

In the tiny apartment on the Lower East Side,

The beautiful Della combed her long hair,

And thought about Christmas and bitterly cried,

For they had no money, no money to spare.

So little money, and Christmas was near,

And Jim worked so hard and for so little pay.

He’d grown discouraged, her darling, her dear

She must give him Christmas, she must find a way.

So she went to a wig shop and sold them her hair,

Her beautiful hair that her husband adored,

Her face was all pale as she sat in the chair,

And she cried as the barber cut it off short.

And out in the street, with a scarf on her head,

And the money in hand, Della searched through the shops,

And there in a window was the gift she must get:

A platinum chain Jim could hang on his watch.

His beautiful watch that his father had owned,

So handsome and beautiful, just like her Jim.

And she bought him the chain and gladly went home

And curled her short hair as she waited for him.

He opened the door and he saw her hair

And she ran to his side and tried to explain

It would grow back so quickly and she didn’t care

And she gave him the beautiful platinum chain.

Jim took her gift — how brightly it shone.

He covered his face and sighed in despair,

And he told her, “I bought you those tortoise shell combs,

Tortoiseshell combs for your beautiful hair.”

He had pawned his watch to buy her the combs,

To buy him the watch chain, she sold her hair

And the two of them looked at each other and groaned,

At the sight of the two useless gifts sitting there.

They sat holding hands and they started to laugh

At the beautiful emptiness of what they were wishing

The gift of the Magi is to hold what you have

And not think a minute of what you are missing.