Eric Frydenlund: Family is the one gift that unites us all

On Christmas Eve, I have the honor of distributing the gifts that have accumulated under the tree. This is no small undertaking. Eight grandchildren intently watch my every move, hoping the next gift might slide in their direction. In addition to ensuring equal billing for grandchildren, I also take strides to save the bigger gifts for adults as a grand finale.

Last year, my son and daughter-in-law asked that I open their gift to me last. I obliged, though I had three presents to my children that I was saving for that occasion. So after the other gifts had been opened, I handed out those three mysteries shrouded in Christmas paper.

To my eldest daughter, I gave a traveling archery trophy with her grandfather’s name on it. My dad loved archery and spent hours in the backyard practicing for the multiple tournaments he entered around the state.

To my youngest daughter, I gave a ski jumping trophy her grandfather won as a young adult. My dad grew up in rural Westby, Wisconsin, where ski jumping was as popular then as football is now.

To my son, I gave the pocketknife, compass and whistle his grandfather carried while hunting. I can still picture my father pulling out that compass to look for direction when we were deep in the woods of northern Wisconsin.

Three of my father’s passions were thus passed fittingly on to the next generation.

My children were very appreciative, but a befuddled look came over their faces as they waited for me to open my present. When I opened it, the room fell silent. Tears welled in my eyes.

It was a painting of my father.

The painting showed my father sitting on a log fence, glancing down through his bifocals at a book he was reading. The exquisitely detailed painting, crafted by my daughter-in-law’s talented sister, was drawn from one of my favorite photos of my father taken at La Riviere Park, the site where I often walk in the woods.

My father wore the iconic plaid shirt that marks every memory I have of him. The log fence he sits on shows every rotted burl and fold of bark. Trees rise behind him with their spindly branches reaching skyward. The red cedar barn, near where I now park my car, stands to his left.

This was the Christmas Gift, a gift of generosity that embodies the goodwill we share at Christmas. Mysteries and memories are intertwined in the legacy of our families, wound through time like the branches of a family tree.

We might call this mutual exchange of memories of my father a remarkable coincidence, an intersection of events we never saw coming. The gifts tumbled out of time and clicked into this moment, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

The pieces were already there: love, history, and generosity -- all ready to be assembled into the Christmas Gift.

Christmas is a time when such events occur, when generations gather around a tree or a dinner table to share gifts and food, and also themselves. An intersection of lives spanning four generations occurred in that room.

Perhaps that will happen in your living room this year. For a nation supposedly so divided that we cannot agree on anything, it’s the one idea that unites us all: family. In everything we do in this world, we find a trace of family.

The painting now hangs on the wall overlooking the room where I opened the gift. It will now preside over the gathering of generations for years to come.

On that Christmas Eve a year ago, we opened our better selves, gifts that find their value in family. What mysteries await us this Christmas?