LEND ME YOUR EAR: ALL GOD'S CHILLUN NEED TOYS

It's Christmas again. The magic is all around us, with toys spilling out of Santa's bags the country over, sending children's imaginations soaring as they await breathlessly the moment of surprise. Remember when you were a child? Were you ever too young to be choosy?

Family legend has it that two months before I was born, my brother Frederick, an only child and grandchild at age two, was so confounded by the surfeit of toy soldiers and trains and building blocks beneath the tree, he was at a loss to decide with deserved investigating or tearing apart first. While doting aunts and uncles and his parents opened and proudly displayed his bounty with a succession of oh's and ooh's, little Frederick vanished from the scene. He was discovered in a corner of the kitchen, trying to put two bent nails together.

Frederick, later Freddie, then Fred, left home to study for the ministry at 15, but his fascination with nails lingered on. Decades later, family and friends were taking their leisure on the comfortable couches he fashioned for them in his leisure hours. The toys he first played with were no longer bent, but all God's chillun need toys even after they have become grandparents. His sturdy couches became his toys.

Then again, my oldest brother's addiction to nails may have presaged a disdain for worldly goods at age two. Certainly we shared some of this feeling later in life, though world travel captured our dual fancy as soon as we saw a map that circled a globe. Fred was in a position to embark on his peregrinations long before I, but finally, at age 60, I made it to Europe by freighter, with Arthur Frommer's "Europe on Five Dollars a Day" under my arm. A former teacher of mine and I took off for three months, extended it to five -- and spent less than most of our friends who settled for three weeks American style.

During this, our only sojourn abroad, Helen Anderson and I risked a tour that included a visit to a diamond factory. Members of the group were "invited" to handle the sparkling decoys, but Helen and I resisted this sales pitch. Returned to fresh air and reality, Helen asked whether I'd have succumbed if I'd brought enough money along. I replied that I'd once worn my mother's platinum diamond pendant to a college dance, and all I could think of throughout the evening was the huge pink bow at the back of my new fashionable pale blue satin formal. What a place for a showy bow for a self-conscious, notably poor dancer!

Still, loving thoughts of Mother's diamond necklace come back to me as I reflect on the Christmas when Mother received it. Dad presented it to her in the basement! The box was too big to go up the narrow stairway, so Mother was obliged to open a full dozen boxes, decreasing in size, until she discovered the small ivory case that held the gift. I stood at the top of the stairs, straining my eyes but not daring to descend. I was only 11, but old enough to know when I wasn't welcome.

Years passed before I learned that Dad could ill afford such a costly present. But it was Christmas, and his beloved deserved an expensive "toy." A diamond pendant may have been the last thing Mother had dreamed of, but she knew it was a gift of love, and she did sometimes show it off whenever she and Dad attended something she considered worthy. The jewel of great price has been in my possession since 1959 -- in a safe-deposit box in a bank most of the time.

Even so, I wouldn't part with so precious a keepsake any more than I'd part with the fake ruby and crystal water glass on a window sill in my living room. The souvenir is etched with these treasured words: "Mrs. Mary Lorberg -- World's Fair St. Louis 1904." This is the only material memory I have of my paternal grandmother, and I lifted it from a cabinet full of cut glass and hand-painted china. Dad said it cost all of five cents. But the glass is a toy of great price to me.

Most adults remain children at heart. Some time after our long stay in Europe, Helen Anderson confessed to me that she had just bought her first Barbie doll. She had just turned 72.

Dolls were never my favorite toy, though I held onto the few that looked teachable. But I think I have now paid for a Barbie -- for a deprived child on our Toybox list. My prayer for this unknown little one is that she will always see Christmas through the eyes of a child, and remain aware of the loving Child for whom the season was named.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!