One of the most memorable and meaningful Christmas Eve’s for me was the year I was abandoned at the public library. It was Monday, December 24, 1979. I was seven. The Baldwin Public Library is in the middle of my small hometown on the south shore of Long Island. One sign of a good town is a gre at library. All these years later, it’s still there on Grand Avenue. I’m being hyperbolic in saying I was “abandoned” – but my parents did just drop my 9-year-old sister and me off that afternoon. They had Christmas secrets and Santa business to tend to, so it was off to the library we went to get us out from underfoot. Good parents wouldn’t do that these days, but life was different back in 1979. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely disappointed. I loved the library. It was (and still is!) a magical place. Each week we’d scour its shelves and ride home with our bicycle baskets filled to the brim with books. But until that Christmas, I can’t recall ever being required to spend the entire afternoon there. Our library had a large children’s area ringed by big windows on three sides. At Christmas, kids were invited to paint the glass with holiday scenes. I was a terrible artist, but I had my window and for the month, every time we passed by in the car outside, my parents would say something nice about the shoddy artwork. There was a Christmas tree with lights and gaudy gold garland by the librarian Mrs. Gettleman’s desk. She was tall and kind and her glasses hung on a chain around her neck. On this Christmas Eve, I gathered an armful of sports’ bios and a stack of Christmas-themed books from a display table. I remember some of them were a compendium of ‘Family Circus’ and ‘Peanuts’ Christmas cartoon books. So, there I sat with my sister waiting for 6 p.m. I read and read and read. I’ve never stopped. My mom used to say that if you loved books, you’d never be lonely. She was right. The late investment guru Charlie Munger often made a practical case for reading. “In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time — none, zero,” he said. “My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.” One of the special books I picked up that afternoon detailed the story of Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon in December, 1968. Men wouldn’t walk on the lunar surface until that next summer, but Colonel Frank Borman, Major William A. Anders and Captain James A. Lovell, Jr., were orbiting the moon that Christmas Eve. Given the holiday, NASA invited the men to come up with a message for the world. They didn’t tell them what to say — or what not to say. The government recognized if you could trust three astronauts to go to outer space on a $310 million mission ($2.6 billion in today’s dollars) you didn’t have to worry about their judgement. Christmas trees decorate the Cross Hall of the White House during a press preview of the Christmas decorations “Home is Where the Heart Is,” Monday, Dec. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) 1968 had been a volatile year not unlike 2025. There had been high profile assassinations (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy), riots and protests. The astronauts didn’t want to be preachy or political – just pointed and poignant. They decided to read a portion of the Creation story from Genesis, beginning with the first verses in the Bible. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth …” read Major Anders. Captain Lovell followed next: “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night …” Finally, Colonel Borman concluded the special message. “And God called the dry land Earth …” He then wished everyone a “Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good earth.” Those three men gave the world a great gift that Christmas Eve in 1968, and my parents unknowingly gave me a wonderful present in 1979. The forced immersion in books was a gift that keeps giving to this day. The commercialism of Christmas encourages us to focus on buying the right presents. Yet, the best gifts aren’t things — but rather lessons, moments and memories. The ultimate gift, of course, is God coming to earth in the form of a baby who would grow up to be a wonderworker, die a brutal death, and then rise from the dead to save us from our sins. Merry Christmas. Paul J. Batura is a local writer and founder of the 4:8 Media Network. He can be reached via email [email protected] or on X @PaulBatura. ...read more read less