The Best Blazers Christmas Story Ever

It’s Christmas Day in Portland Trail Blazers Land. Though the Blazers don’t play today, we have plenty of stories, questions, and discussion opportunities for all of you who are negotiating your way through the holiday.

We’re going to finish up with my own, personal Blazers miracle story. It has to do with my first grown-up Christmas ever.

For those of you who don’t know, when I’m not writing about the Blazers here, I’m a pastor. Like a church pastor. I know that we’ve all known icky examples of that, but I try to be a compassionate, smart, and decent one. I only bring up my occupation because it’s necessary to understand the story.

In our denomination, initial placement is kind of like the military. When you graduate from seminary and are ready to become a real, live pastor, they have you fill out a form stating all the places you’d like to go and/or are willing to serve. They then proceed to send you wherever they damn well please. You can choose your region later in your career, but that first call is at the service of the church.

Nowadays there’s a shortage of pastoral candidates so a lot more people get to go where they like. When I graduated, that was much less so. On my form I said, “Send me West!” I was a west coast boy. I figured if I could get anywhere close, I’d be ok.

My denomination has a heavy presence in the middle of the country, though. Apparently as far west as they could envision was Western Iowa. That was not only not very West, it was rural as heck. The smallest city I had lived in up to then was about 150,000 people. I got called to a town of 300. Not 300,000. Literally 300. Corn and soybeans dominated the landscape, broken only by the town’s water tower and a church steeple or two.

I received my call in June and acclimated well enough to the environment, all things considered. But six months in, I had to deal with a considerable emotional hurdle: Christmas. I was 1500 miles away from any family. I had no close friends there, nobody I’d naturally spend the holiday with. I could have visited and eaten with any number of parishioners but that would have been more like working than relaxing.

I decided that the best thing possible would be to ignore the holiday as much as possible. I had no tree. Heck, I had no furniture! Just a bare living room floor with a single chair and a TV resting on the cardboard box it had come packed in. I was ready to tune out everything Christmas and save the emotional heartache by just considering it a bonus day off.

Except people in my life had other plans.

My family was thinking of me at Christmas, naturally, and they shipped presents via mail. This created a problem. I couldn’t ignore the holiday with gifts lying around. But I really didn’t want to open them sitting on a bare floor alone. That would somehow make everything even sadder.

Finally I caved. I thought it’d be rude to leave the presents unacknowledged. So I got them out of their mailing boxes and set them on the floor, wrapped up and unopened. I just stared at them, trying to get the emotional fortitude to actually unwrap.

But then entered the real hero of this story.

You see, when I moved into my own place, I promised myself I’d do two things. First I’d get a satellite dish so I could watch the Blazers play on League Pass. I did that. Second, I wanted a cat. We had a cat when I was growing up and I loved him. I decided if I had to live alone, at least someone would live alone with me. So I went to the local shelter and found a beautiful kitty named Princess Buttercup. She was a tabby, fairly small but with a huge personality. She loved me dearly.

My first Christmas alone was also Princess Buttercup’s first Christmas ever. After I set the gifts out on the floor, she pranced in the room and stopped. She saw the ribbons and bows. She saw that amazing wrapping paper. She looked at me as if to say, “What is this?!?”

“They’re Christmas presents,” I said. “You open them, like this.” I unfolded a corner of paper off of one of the gifts.

Once she saw that, Princess Buttercup went into Christmas Mode. She jumped on top of that package and began to tear open the paper with her teeth. She did not stop until the present was unwrapped. She was having so much fun, I couldn’t help but laugh. Once she removed the paper, I opened the box underneath and took out the present. She was excited! Some of them were for her!!! Then I’d push the next present over to her and she’d open that too.

Together she and I spent a good half an hour ripping paper and laughing. As a side note, this started a lifelong hobby with her, to the point that in later years, I’d literally have to sleep by the tree on Christmas Eve night to keep her from opening all the presents before Christmas morning arrived.

The last present was the biggest. When she had disposed of the outer wrapping, I opened the box to find the most beautiful suede Trail Blazers jacket ever. My heart melted. I loved that coat so much! I still have it and wear it today.

It was warm and fit me perfectly. I loved it dearly. It made me feel connected and ok. It still reminds me of my first little kitty in my first adult house.

And that’s the story of Princess Buttercup and the best Trail Blazers gift ever!

What favorite Trail Blazers gifts have you given or received? Feel free to share your own story in the comments section below! And don’t forget to pass on the gift by sending kids in need to see the Blazers play a real, live game this season!