Time For a Gift

One of the best things about the Christmas Holiday Season is that you get to create your own special family traditions. And the best thing about family traditions is that they create memories that last a lifetime. My wife and I started two new traditions this season and both were very memorable.

Our first new tradition was to take our grandchildren around town to look at Christmas light displays. Thanks to Google and Siri it’s pretty easy to find the neighborhoods that have gone crazy with Christmas Lights and the entire time we were driving around our youngest granddaughter, Penelope, who is all of 3 years old, led us in singing all the classic Christmas songs like Jingle Bells. Okay, so she didn’t know all the words, but she was really good at making up her own words, which cracked everyone up.

Our second new tradition involved the eight members of our immediate family including my wife, our three kids and their significant others. We started it yesterday by meeting at a restaurant for Sunday Brunch and then the 4 girls left to go shopping while the 4 guys left to go golfing. Our family is so close and we had so much fun that we even met at a Mexican Restaurant afterwards for drinks and tacos.

On the way home I started thinking about how far behind I am on my Christmas shopping and I started to get stressed out. I hate to admit it, but I have always struggled with gift giving for some reason. It’s not that I don’t care or that I don’t put the time into it, I’m just not creative when it comes to gift giving so I really stress out about it. As I started agonizing over who would want what and what color and what size, and “Can they bring it back if they don’t like it”, etc. etc. it dawned on me that I had already given my family one of the best gifts possible…the gift of time spent with people you love…and I didn’t even have to request a gift receipt!

"And lo, there were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night, and lo the angel of the lord came upon them and the glory of the lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid, and the angel said unto them, fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. And suddenly there was with the angels a multitude of the heavenly hosts, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth - peace, good will toward men."