An elementary public school south of Seattle had its own run-in with this year's holiday tree controversy. The school had set up a "Giving Tree," one of those neon coiled silver-trees adorned with cut-out paper mittens, each one of which held the wish of a particular child living at one of the nearby homeless shelters.

School kids were encouraged to select a mitten, purchase a wish-gift for the homeless child, and turn the gift and mitten back into the principal's office. The gifts would be taken to the shelter and distributed a few days before Christmas.

All was well . . . until one parent called the principal complaining that this Giving Tree was obviously a Christmas tree and hence this was foisting a faith tradition upon unsuspecting children.

Trying to appease the irate parent, yet retain the charitable practice, the public-school principal ditched the tree and taped the mittens to the front office counter of the school. Now it's dubbed the "Giving Counter."

The TV announcer reporting on this Giving Counter that replaced the Giving Tree concluded his story by noting that at least the children were still able to reach out to those less fortunate in their community and experience the joy of helping others. But as he concluded his story on the air, the reporter inadvertently talked himself into a corner. "After all," he said, "isn't this kind of giving the real spirit of . . . of . . . of . . . winter."

Too late he realized he was about to say the "C" word and hastily substituted the lame sounding "winter."

The spirit of winter, huh?

Winter is cold, dark, harsh, bleak, and hostile. Before central heating and food storage, winter was a time to hunker down and try simply to survive. In the animal kingdom it's the hardships of winter that cull out the weak, the old and the sick from the population. Charity, compassion, self-less giving, putting others first have never been signs of winter.

Instead the winter-bashing compassion associated with this season comes from the distinctly Christian, not commercial, celebration of Christmas. Perhaps the overblown image of Santa Claus versus the original tradition of Saint Nicholas best demonstrates the unique Christian Christmas heritage that twenty-first century disciples need to recall.

No bishop in the history of Christianity has been so widely celebrated, and so wrongly celebrated, as Saint Nicholas. This early 4th-century bishop named St. Nicholas originated in the Orthodox East, at a place called Myra in Byzantine Asia Minor (today it's called Demre, an agricultural town in the Mediterranean coast of southern Turkey).

By the 12th-century Nicholas was honored as the greatest saint in the entire hierarchy of saints. Some 400 churches bear his name in Britain alone.

One reason his saint's day (December 6, 326) became so widely celebrated is because he was revered and loved as a helper, an intercessor for the hungry and the needy.

The best-known of the St. Nicholas stories involves a man with three unmarried daughters, and not enough money to provide them with suitable dowries. This meant that they couldn't marry, and were likely to end up as prostitutes. Nicholas walked by the man's house on three successive nights, and each time threw a bag of gold in through a window (or, when the story came to be told in colder climates, down the chimney). Thus, the daughters were saved from a life of shame, and all got married and lived happily ever after.

Because of this and similar stories, Nicholas became a symbol of anonymous gift-giving. Hence, if we give a gift to someone today without saying whom it's from, it can be called a present from Saint Nicholas (or Santa Claus). Some parents explained this to their children and invited the child to join them in wrapping a toy. That toy was either something purchased for that purpose of giving to someone less fortunate, at least partly with the child's allowance, or else a toy that the child has outgrown but that's still serviceable. That toy could also be an outgrown but not shabby item of the child's clothing, or a package of food. Part of the St. Nicholas ritual was then going along to donate it to a suitable shelter that would give it to someone who would welcome it.

Gifts given in this way came to be called a present from Santa. Such a designation enabled the child to understand that this is another name for an anonymous gift given to someone whom we don't know, but whom we love anyway because God does. (Presents within the family can be "From Santa" or "From Santa and . . .")

This was the original ritual of Christmas: giving to the poor, the hungry, the needy and the insignificant, the seemingly unimportant members of the community. This is the spirit of St. Nicholas. (For more see Jeremy Seal, Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus [Bloomsbury USA, 2005].)

Yet in today's gospel text we read how even this giving is only the palest imitation of God's ultimate gift. Luke's text also highlights the absolute unimportance and insignificance of Mary. She lives in the rather ratty little blue-collar town of Nazareth. Mary herself is wholly unimpressive---young, female, still unmarried with no husband or children to improve her status. Yet she is proclaimed the favored one and assured by the angel Gabriel that "The lord is with you" (verse 28).

To this humble woman the angel promises that the Lord will bring the birth of a baby with the bluest of blood. The child Mary will bear will be great. He will claim the throne of his ancestor David and will reign over the house of Jacob forever (verse 33). To Mary who's the least is promised the birth of the one who will be the greatest. God's giving knows no boundaries. God's love is limitless. The blue collar town of Nazareth and the blue-blood city of Bethlehem will join together in bringing God's miracle to earth.

Jesus' great and grubby start in life was simply a foretaste of his entire mission to the world. It's no wonder that Luke's infancy narrative gives hints both to the past works of God in the lives of God's chosen people and hints of the future demonstrations of Jesus during his ministry on earth. The constant surprising presence of God in the lives of all people, from all walks of life, from both sides of the tracks, is a divine constant throughout scripture, and throughout the true mission of Christ's church.

The Salvation Army has partnered with Washington State ferries to place giving trees on all the ferries of Puget Sound. Passengers can pick off the giving tree a Christmas card, on which is written the first name of a child, and printed on that card is the wish list of that child for Christmas.

The good news . . . most cards were quickly picked up. The bad news . . . some cards were left, and didn't move. In fact, the cards that were left nobody seemed to want to pick up.

When I asked why the cards had been so picked over, I was told to go and see for myself why "those cards will stay there." When I walked over and looked at the cards, I saw requests like these: a cd player or a DVD player or a Gameboy.

"Now do you see why those cards aren't moving? Look what these kids are asking for?"

Isn't it interesting that these kids are only asking for what every other kid is asking for (and I saw not once card for XBOX 360)? Somehow we have the idea that we can give the best to our own children but not the best to the children of strangers?

This is an example of how far the traditions of Santa Claus have departed from the traditions of Saint Nicholas.

John Buchanan, editor of The Christian Century, tells of reading in The Wall Street Journal (3 October 2005, p. 1) of a Harvard medical student's research on birth anomalies. He was visiting the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where the curator showed him an obscure fifteenth-century painting of Madonna and Child. The child, the baby Jesus, had the features of Down Syndrome. The medical student, Brian Skotko, who has a 25-year-old sister Kristin who has Down Syndrome herself, said he thought "the artist was someone like me, living in the fifteenth century, who had a brother or sister with Down syndrome and chose to use the child as a model."

Here's the exact excerpt from the article in The Wall Street Journal: "One morning, Mr. Skotko and Dr. Crocker went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In the basement, a picture of Mary and the Christ child had been taken out of storage and propped against a wall. An art historian wrote a 1982 paper suggesting the child in the painting appeared to have similar features to that of a child with Down syndrome."

When the museum purchased the picture in the 1930s, it was thought to be by 15th-century Italian painter Andrea Mantegna. Now historians believe it was painted by a lesser artist, imitating him.

The two men worked from a checklist used by doctors when they make a diagnosis of Down syndrome. The child appeared to have some of the features, such as a protruding tongue, a gap between his first and second toes, and short, broad hands. But other traits were impossible to determine. "This person doesn't shout Down syndrome at you, but there are features that are very suggestive," said Dr. Crocker.

Frederick Ilchman, assistant curator of paintings at the museum, listened as they debated. He thinks the features that make the baby look like someone with Down syndrome were unintentional. Mr. Skotko was reluctant to give up on the possibility that the artist was "someone like me, living in the 15th century, who had a brother or a sister with Down syndrome," he said, and chose to use the child as a model.

He looked at the painting one more time. "I lean towards being a believer," he said.

I checked the Web site of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and of course, this isn't one of the pictures they have on display. But is there any better image of the God who comes to everyone of us, the greatest and the least, than this Madonna and Child . . . and a Saint Nicholas who leaves anonymous gifts to strangers who need them the most?