My darling,

            Because you're my one true love, I wanted to get you something really special for Christmas.  Unfortunately I couldn't think of just the right gift to give you, and for the longest time I was cast about in a sea of indecision (just off the coast of the state of Confusion) until at last it occurred to me that the best thing to give you was also the simplest: a hug.

            That having been settled, all I had to do was pick out just the right hug for you and deliver it in time for you to find it under the tree, in your stocking, or on the roof.

            One thing I've learned in life is that hugs are easy to give away.  They're very nomadic by nature.  They never stay in one place very long, but just kind of roll from one pair of arms to another, not minding the trip at all (enjoying the travel, actually) and relishing the joy of new scenery and new company.

            Hugs are very untempermental.  They don't care how you carry them or where you take them, how you give them away, how often, or to whom.  All they care about is that you want to give them away and that the one you're giving them to wants to have them.

            Hugs are genuine.  There's nothing phony about them.  They love.  They care.  Don't ever mistake for the real thing those superficial clasp-the-arms-and-touch-cheek-to-cheek imitations people at parties try to pass off as hugs.  Those are just handshakes dressed up as hugs for Halloween.

            People love hugs.  Rare is the Scrooge who doesn't enjoy a robust hug from a good fellow, a gentle squeeze from a little child, or the warm embrace of a parent or lover.

            And, finally, try as you might (and there are those who do), you simply can't get away from hugs.  There's just so blasted many of them.  They multiply faster than rabbits.  Give one away and a hundred more pop up in its place.  They're contagious.  And, once you catch one, there’s no antibiotic you can take for it.  You can't cure, kill, shrink or amputate a hug.  All you can do is give it away.

            So, with all that in mind and having nearby a whole storehouse of hugs to choose from, I looked about to see what kind of hug I should give you.

            The first one I spotted was little Kermit the Hug.  Kermit is short and quick, full of life and a lot of heart and love and caring...and a lot of energy!  This is one busy hug.  You usually see him in crowded places like parties, weddings, funerals, and bar mitzvahs, darting quickly here and there like a water spider on the surface of a pond.  They're nice, and they're more plentiful than grains of sand on a beach, but they're not nearly discriminating enough.

            I wanted a more special hug for you.

            So I moved on to the Sherman Potter Hug.  This hug is not so footloose and fancy-free.  He moves slower and lasts longer, and he's reserved for closer friends and family.  He's a comfortable hug, like a warm blanket and a teddy bear or a fireplace and a cup of hot cocoa.  If he kept in shape as many people do, he would walk or jog instead of wrestling bears, and he would more than likely play golf than roller derby.  This hug always shows up at birthdays, graduations, holidays, and good old friendly get-togethers.  But this one wasn't quite what I had in mind either, so I put him on reserve and moved on.

            It was then that I found him: the Woolly Mammoth Hug.  This is the heavyweight champion of hugs, the biggest mountain of love there is, a two-ton galumphing beast of a hug who smothers you like a tidal wave of molasses, is more powerful than a kissy Saint Bernard, and leaps tall hot fudge sundaes in a single bound.  He's the alpha and omega of hugs, the hug to end all hugs.  This is the hug you tell your friends about, the one you take home to meet Mom and Dad if their hearts are strong, the hug you live, eat, breathe and die for.  This one grabs your entire being and never let's go, smothering your whole body and cuddling up to your heart at the same time.  He shines like a star and glows like a soft ember.  You could light up New York City with this one, and yet carry him around in your pocket all day to warm your heart and keep you going.

            He may be physical, and he often is.  He holds his lover close, passionately but tenderly, conveying a warmth and depth of devotion given to no one else.  She holds her newborn baby in her arms for the first time, and then later for the two hundred millionth time, giving it life and then nourishing that life, picking it up and kissing its bumps and bruises, and shedding countless tears and spending eternally sleepless nights suffering through childhood illnesses and growing pains and teen years and first dates and proms and graduations and college and careers and marriage.  This one feeds the hungry, heals the sick, provides for the needy, comforts the lonely, and loves the unloved and the unwanted.

            But he may not be physical at all.  He told Virginia that yes, there is a Santa Claus.  He bid farewell to the Babe at Yankee Stadium.  He reached out with worn and weary hands to heal a divided nation after the bloodiest war in its history.  And He hung on a cross and shed His blood to pay for the sins of all mankind.

            This was the hug I picked out for you, but getting him to you was not as easy as finding him had been.  The only thing I could do was mail him to you, but this presented a problem.  Woolly Mammoth Hugs aren't the easiest things to send through the mail, and I had never tried to mail one before, but I found myself an envelope and tried to put him in it.

            Well, you know, you can hardly fit your hand inside one of those things, much less a hug that leaps tall hot fudge sundaes in a single bound; and it tore all apart (the envelope, not the hot fudge sundae).

            So I got a bigger envelope, one of those magazine-size things; but 1 got as far as my neck and ripped it all to pieces.

            Then I tried to stuff your hug into a big jiffy bag, the kind you put large things like records and portraits and stuff like that in.  I got my head in pretty well, but when I tried to stuff the shoulder in, the jiffy bag ripped all apart, your hug popped out, and a whole bunch of stuffing spilled out onto the floor.

            My co-workers all fussed at me for making a mess; my boss came out and fussed at me for making a mess; and, when I got home, my mother called to fuss at me for making a mess.

            Now, my mother had no way of knowing that I'd really made a mess.  No one had told her.  But she knows me so well, she says, that she simply fusses at me every day, on general principles, figuring that the odds are I will have actually made a mess and that more often than not she'll be right, and she would hate to miss fussing at me on a day when I actually made a mess and thus let me off the hook.  She's usually right, too, and what I learned from all this was that a jiffy bag isn't the best place to try to put a hug that’s more powerful than a kissy Saint Bernard.

            It was then that I decided I could pack your hug into a big box, and this time it worked.  I found this huge refrigerator box and I figured that, no matter how big a hug I sent you, I could fit it into this box.  And I was right.

            Well, I got it all together and stepped into the box with your hug, but before I could step out again my boss and my co-workers and probably my mother ran up real quick and sealed up the box with me still in it.  I heard them hurriedly taping it shut and smacking labels on the outside and carrying it down the freight elevator and out to a truck, and it pretty soon got kind of cozy inside the box.  Woolly Mammoth Hugs fill up refrigerator boxes pretty good.

            So now I’m in Guam, and I've still got your hug, and I don't quite know what to do with him.  If I try to fly us both home, it'll cost me double-fare and all I have is lunch money, but if I leave him in Guam he'll stay with the natives and you won't find him in your stocking, under your tree, or eating your house.

            So I decided I would try to mail your hug to you, and the first thing I did was go looking for an envelope.

            Smile!  Jesus loves you, your family and friends love you, I love you, and Woolly Mammoths all over the world love you.  Your’s is on his way.

 Unpublished work © 2006 Henry Zecher