As Christmas approaches, I often get nostalgic – granted it isn’t hard for me to get that way at any time of the year – but the Holiday Season has always been special. There’s a magic in that time that touches my heart and my soul, and one of the best parts is the spirit of “giving.”
We give each other gifts for many reasons, the primary one to show our love for each other, and in diplomatic terms a gift from a leader of one nation to another is a gesture of goodwill. I recall in catechism classes being told of the religious significance of giving gifts as a commemoration of the story of the Three Wise Men who brought their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to Baby Jesus.
I don’t know if the religious aspect is front and center in peoples’ minds in this season of “gifting,” but for the most part, the sharing of love and goodwill is.
The following is an excerpt from my humorous memoir, A Dead Tomato Plant & A Paycheck, which is a compilation of columns I wrote eons ago when I was known as the Erma Bombeck of Plano, Texas. There’s a chapter about the holidays from Halloween through the Fourth of July, with several essays about Christmas. Enjoy the read!
One year, I was able to take one thing off my To-Do list of holiday preparations. It was the year that necessity put me in the position of making a lot of our gifts. At first, I was disappointed that our checkbook couldn’t be as generous as our hearts, but as I decided what to make for each person and started working on the projects, I gained a new perspective. The time I spent on each gift made me feel closer to the person I was making it for. It was like actually spending time with them, thinking of all the things that make them special to me, and I realized the extra benefit of a handmade gift.
A benefit I didn’t always appreciate in quite the same way with purchased gifts.
After my husband and I moved to Texas, we rarely made it back to Michigan for holidays, and my mother always sent handmade gifts for Christmas. Necessity has ruled her entire life, and we became accustomed to not expecting gifts of any great monetary value. Even so, the arrival of her annual box always sparked an eagerness in me that I never fully understood. The gifts were either handmade or just a small trinket, and sometimes there were even gifts for we-don’t-know-who. Sometimes we didn’t even know what the gift was or what it was for; usually something she knitted or crocheted that could be a small afghan, or a very thin rug, or a large lap blanket.
When the kids were young, they never understood my excitement over mother’s box, either, but I couldn’t fault them for that. It’s easy for a simple gift to be diminished when stacked up next to one larger and more expensive, and like the kids, I often saw my mother’s efforts as a mere gesture.
But the year that necessity forced me to make gifts, was the year that I finally understood what a gift really is, whether handmade or purchased.
A gift is not just a thing. It’s a connection between the person giving and the person receiving that says something special about the relationship between the two. And a gift should never be rushed. The longer you think about it, plan it, and work on it, the stronger the connection.
That’s the special, intangible ingredient my mother wrapped up and sent to us for all those years.
As my gift to you, my short story, The Gift is free today and four more days for Kindle readers. The story is about the impact of giving and one special puppy. I hope you like it. A companion Christmas story, The Last Dollar, is also about the magic of giving, actual magic, and is only .99 for Kindle.
ABOUT THE STORIES
THE LAST DOLLAR: There is something especially magical about the Holiday Season. Find out how the magic touches Kate and her family in this story of giving and receiving.
THE GIFT: Ralph has been like a grizzly bear in a dark cave for too long, and Stacey gets a wild idea to buy him a puppy for Christmas. Maybe that will make him smile. But that plan gets detoured when she meets a homeless man who has much more to be depressed about than Ralph.
As we head toward the end of the week and finishing our preparations for the holidays, I hope you find joy every day. And thanks for reading.