The Greatest Christmas Toy Ever
Themes: Advent, Christmas, Messiah, Greatness
Related to: Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:1-20), Who is the greatest? Jesus is.
All the wind-up toys in this exquisite toy store come to life overnight to compete to see who is the greatest. One night a new wind-up toy arrives triggering the toys to reconsider what it means to be the greatest.
Once upon a time there was a HUGE toy store.
It had 100 aisles in it. Each aisle was about two blocks long. And there were shelves that went from the floor all the way up to the ceiling. The shelves were filled with toys from all around the world.
In aisle 38 lived all the wind-up toys and at the end of aisle 38 lived the leader of the wind-up toys, General John, who possessed the master wind-up key that could wind-up any toy in the aisle. Now, every night during Advent after the store had closed, General John would come to life and bring the wind-up toys to life to compete with each other to see who was the greatest.
First, General John wound up the leap frog wind-up toys and they would see who could leap the farthest. Then, he would wind-up the racing cars and they would see who could travel the fastest. Then, he would wind-up the ballerina wind-up toys and they would see who could dance the most gracefully. Every wind-up toy took their turn in the competition.
One night a few days before Christmas, General John gathered up all the wind-up toys because he had an announcement, “Back in the shipping dock, a new wind-up toy has just arrived that is so special that not even I, General John, am fit to untie the ribbon of its package.”
“What could be so special about this toy?” the toys scoffed. “I bet it can’t jump as far as we can,” the leap frogs said. “Bet it can’t race as fast as we can,” bragged the race cars. “Bet it can’t dance as beautifully as we can,” the ballerinas declared.
“Let’s give it a chance,” General John answered. And with that, the angry mob of wind-up toys stormed back toward the shipping dock. They tore open all the boxes in the shipping area and finally they found it. They dragged it into the center, gathered around it and scoffed, “What is so special about this toy?”
It didn’t look like much. It was just a very simple Nativity scene wind-up toy. Mary was sitting and held the Baby Jesus in her arms. Joseph stood behind her with a supportive hand upon her shoulder. And that was it.
“Wait, wait,” spoke up General John above the murmur of the crowd. “When I wind it up, I think you will understand.”
General John wound it up and Mary began gently to rock the Baby Jesus back and forth in her arms while a simple version of Silent Night began to play. And Joseph just stood there with a supportive hand on Mary’s shoulder—that’s all he did.
The gang of wind-up toys grew quiet and, after a little while, at first one by one, and then two by two, they began to kneel down in their places until the entire shipping area was filled with kneeling wind-up toys. Without saying a word to each other, somehow, they all began to understand that this Nativity wind-up toy was not only the best wind-up toy in the whole store; but this wind-up toy was the greatest Christmas toy ever.
by Tony McCaffrey
(Notice that the written version is slightly different than the oral version. The oral version is slightly different each time it is told.)