The Gifts that Matter Most

Gifts When I was small, gifts were made by my parents, since money was scarce but love was surrounding. The doll bunkbed and doll cradle shared with my sisters; the pretty new dress. As I got older, and fortunes improved, the gifts were carefully chosen to elicit an OHHH and AHHH when opened. We learned early how to make our money go farther by shopping the sales, starting with the After Christmas sales on Dec 26th , though often we would find by the next December that we had given the gift early, as an “I Love You” gift, rather than holding on to it for Christmas. At times, it was hard to come up with a gift worthy of AHHHs and OHHHs. Blankness filling our heads as we searched for that special gift, with no help from the future recipient. One year, when my husband refused to say what he wanted – telling me he didn’t need or want anything that year, I threatened screwdrivers. It was a very long Christmas morning that year, as he opened package after package – each filled with 1 screwdriver, but the total encompassing all the screwdrivers that Craftsman made. Another year, the OHHHS and AHHHS came quickly as he opened the box with the ring, I had had crafted to duplicate his flight wings wrapped around his finger. As we’ve gotten older there are fewer AHHHs and OHHHs. Now if we need or want something, we get it for ourselves, rather than waiting for someone to give it to us, or if given, it’s given when needed, rather than waiting on a special day. For relatives and friends, it’s often donations to a cause they support, or a gift basket of consumables or homemade cookies or spiced nuts. But still, it’s nice to have something to open on Christmas morning. Something unexpected, something “fun”. Something only someone who knows us well would think to give us. Perhaps it’s a bar of deep chocolate with a label saying “For Stress Relief”, or a Hot Chocolate Bomb to share while eating our stocking oranges, or that book we’ve been meaning to buy. Or perhaps it's a hug, a real HUG, not a virtual one, but one where someone wraps their arms around us and holds us tight and tells us we are loved.