I have a pet peeve at Christmas time... impersonal gifts. They bother me. I know that buying for everyone on a Christmas list is hard and requires lots of running and shopping and stress. When you're running out of time (and energy and money and ideas) you just decide that Grandma could use another cardigan sweater or Aunt Lucy should have a candle (just like you got her the last ten years in a row). I'm guilty of it, too, so don't think I'm pointing any fingers. But I have learned how great it feels to give a very personal gift, as well as receive one. It's an amazing feeling and it's what Christmas is really all about. Getting personal. Showing love. Making someone smile.
Some of my favorite Christmas gifts have been the most personal ones. I love the handmade paint sample collage made by my friend Sheila in honor of my paint sample addiction. I love the photo album given to me last year by Steve's niece Nicole. She let Kate use her camera during our Thanksgiving festivities and then she made a photo album of Kate's first photos for me at Christmas. It was awesome and personal and it made me cry. I love the heartshaped locket that my mom gave me for Christmas the year I had Kate. It has Kate's name engraved on the back and the locket has room for four pictures...just in case God blesses us with a handful of children, I guess! I love the pen and ink drawing of a light house that Steve made me to hang in my office the year I got my first real job and the Christmas ornament with our honeymoon picture inside it that he got me the year we were married, and the leather-bound journal that he gave me to write out all of my thoughts the year we were doing IVF.
I have given some pretty personal gifts as well - mostly centered around photography, because I love it and I love sharing it with others. I loved giving Steve a digital scrapbook from Kate that focused on the great relationship between the two of them. I loved giving the calendars featuring pictures of my family's annual beach vacation to my mom and my sister-in-law. I loved giving necklaces to my friends Sheila and Sara with pictures of their children on it. I loved giving Steve a weekend male bonding adventure to go white water rafting with his best friend.
It feels good to give personal gifts. They're remembered. They're meaningful. They touch people's lives. I've long since forgotten the perfume and sheet sets, candles and household gadgets that I put on my lists over the years. But I'll never forget the handwritten recipes that Steve's sister gave me so that we could make his favorite cookies and pies or the tiny scrapbook that my friend Sara gave me featuring photos she took at my wedding or the tiny gold ring with the itty bitty diamond chip in it that my parents stuffed into the bottom of my stocking when I was a little girl. Oh, how I loved that sweet ring, and I still have it today!
So this Christmas, I urge you to get personal. Think about what is important to your friends and family. Use your talents and give something that can't be bought in the store. Gift giving should be meaningful, personal. Try it. I promise it will make you feel so good about giving and that is the true spirit of the season.
These photos will be wrapped up under someone's tree this year...wouldn't it make you happy to open these?
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I totally agree! I think that the thought that goes into a gift is so important! I think my favorite is the makeup vanity that Ben made me. I needed one so badly and one of our first Christmases together he suprised me!
ReplyDeleteHolly-Belle, you bring tears to my eyes! I so enjoyed reading some of your blog. IVF wasn't possible when I was your age. I only had a 5% chance of ever getting pregnant. No drugs or any other method worked. I decided at 32 that God had another plan for me and it was giving and sharing with my students. Many of my former students have made me feel like a parent when I've gone to see them perform, danced at their weddings(I did this with my date at your wedding...Zack), and felt joy at the birth announcement of their children. I have very fond members of Holly-Belle, teacher of the day in Mrs. Henicle's second grade class.
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