The Giving Season

Here we are at the doorstep of another Christmas.  This will be my 68^th, and the first one I’ve ever spent without my mom.  It’s not something I wanted or expected but…it simply is what it is.

As I’ve half-heartedly prepared for the holiday, picking up a gift here and there, I’ve come to think a lot about this being the season of giving and receiving gifts.   The years pass and all those gifts seem to run together.  I remember a small record player when I was eight or nine…a heart shaped pendant from my husband one year…a box containing a baby rattle to announce the upcoming birth of our first grandchild…other than that I can’t specifically remember many gifts.   Where do all those memories go?

I’ve been blessed to have been born into a family of ‘givers’.  I never left my grandmother’s house without what I jokingly called my “care package”.  It was usually comprised of a quart of her home canned green beans (which I reserved for our Thanksgiving table ), and a pint of her delicious jelly made from whatever berries were plentiful the past summer.  She might also tuck in a quilted potholder she’d made, maybe a doily she had crocheted.  There was always something delicious and personal in my package, and I hope I was as appreciative then as I am today for each of those things.

My Mom followed in that tradition.  Sometimes I tried to escape without  taking something home, but I seldom got out the door without some delicious left overs or some small things she’d ordered from TV that she thought I just had to have.  The last two years of her life she was unable to get out and shop; I was first her transportation and, ultimately, her personal shopper.  Still, she’d carefully wash out Styrofoam containers from the meals that were delivered to her.  “These can come in handy for your lunch, you never know when you can use them,” she’d say as she tucked them into a used grocery store bag she had squirrelled away in a drawer.  Even when she had so little, I almost never went home empty handed. 

This will still be a joyous Christmas, because the reason for the celebration hasn’t changed.  I will revisit my blessings, and be thankful for every one of my friends and family around the table this year.  The conspicuously empty chair will remind me how lucky I am that my entire life has been lived in a giving season, and that now it is my turn.  Perhaps I can give the important people in my life the one truly priceless thing that was given to me…the memory of hearts so full they always had something to share. 

Merry Christmas to all…make every day a giving season.