Articles

The Perfect Gift

These are typical thoughts that go through my mind at this time of year as I prepare to find, “The Perfect Gift.”

What will it be? Where will I ever find it? How much do I spend? How am I going to come up with enough money to pay for it? Is it too expensive? Not enough? How much will they spend on me?

I am so busy looking and fretting over this special gift, that at the end of the day, I am too tired and stressed to enjoy my time with the special people I am buying for.

When will I find time to visit my family over the holidays…or prepare my Christmas cards? Oh I know! I can send one of those virtual emails and send one note to everyone. I certainly won’t have time to bake, and I will probably have to hire someone to decorate the tree, so I can make some more money to pay for the gifts.

I had a little chat with myself and said: STOP. What has happened to me, and it’s only the beginning of December? I claim to be a spiritual being. It’s the holidays not the holicraze.

I looked up a couple words in the dictionary.

Christmas: Celebrated as a church festival in commemoration of the birth of Christ and observed as a legal holiday.

Gift: The act or power of giving.

Not one place did it mention Hallmark, Winners, The Gap, blisters, too much coffee, not enough coffee, not enough sleep, Visa, MC, Line of credit, or a second job.

So I decided to re-focus and think about the gift I really wanted to give… and that is the gift of LOVE.

Oh that sounds good but what exactly does ‘the gift of love’ mean: to a teenager, a child, to my friends and parents?

I know that my brother in Ontario would love to commit some time to having a chat on the phone. My mum would love to spend an afternoon looking through family pictures with a nice cup of tea. My nephews, on the other hand, would love to spend the same afternoon in the pub shooting pool with Shawn.

I know that as a family when we sit around our table reminiscing, we never talk about the year someone bought me this or that, but we remember the year we got snowed into my sister Claire’s house for four days over Christmas. Or the year, that my other sister Bev, dropped the cooked turkey in the snow. Those are the memories that I want to take with me. What about you, what memories do you want to create in your life this holiday season?

I know what ‘the gift of love’ would mean to me.

Shawn

It starts with the power of intention. What do you want to create? Chaos? Serenity? Debt till July? Set the intention that you want to create now.

So what’s it going to be? If I had a week to live, would I go shopping to buy my man and babies presents, or would I spend time being with them and letting them know how much I loved being in their presence? Definitely the latter. Except I would have to find time to buy the perfect dress for my final showing (probably wouldn’t bother with shoes though).

Instead of spending hours shopping for gifts, ask a friend how you can support him or her for a couple of hours, an afternoon or a day. How about sharing our god given talents this holiday season, instead of beating ourselves up for not giving enough stuff to others? How good would that feel?

If the holidays are all about giving, what better gift to give this season than the gift of yourself.