Tis the Season...

...to stress about gifts. The world of retail has officially taken the stressful five-ish weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas and kickstarted the chaos in the beginning of October instead. In order to "get the best deals," Amazon wanted us to know what we were buying for Christmas on October 10. This is not what it's about.

I used to think it was shallow to want gifts and give them. Some part of me feels like that's often the messaging we send to kids. And that makes sense. Developmentally, it's appropriate for kids to think only of themselves and their experiences and for adults to try to combat that egocentrism. However, I think that results in a lot of us having twisted understandings of gift-giving as a way to give and receive love.

Gifts are a tangible way to say, "Hey, I was thinking of you, and my life is better because you're here." They're a beautiful way to express love.

Giving

The high I get from planning gifts is unparalleled. My phone is riddled with gift idea lists for all my people. Like my mother, I typically begin Christmas shopping well before Halloween. Unlike my mother, who was known for buying the perfect gift so far in advance she'd lose it before being able to give it to the recipient, I have a box I keep upcoming gifts. I wholeheartedly welcome the excuse to shop.

Another element of gift-giving that's easy to forget about but important to mention is the random, surprise, little gift. The surprise coffee or note on your desk, the little "this made me think of you" trinket or sweet, the unexpected, seemingly insignificant token is profound. Not to be dramatic, but I feel like these little gifts get so woven into the undercurrent of who we are. They help us to feel significant, something that matters far more than most things in the world.

Receiving

First and foremost, I googled how to spell "receive" before starting this post.

In fifth grade this week, we had a rich discussion on all the stresses of receiving gifts. We talked about how difficult it can be when we're given a gift we're not overly excited about. For them, it was so disappointing when given clothes because they recognize their parents are going to buy them clothes, whether it's Christmas or not, so they felt like their parents were just trying to cheat the system. I found that to be such a cool discovery. We as adults think getting clothes as a gift is great because we have to buy our own clothes, but when someone else already buys that for you, it doesn't feel like a gift.

Like I mentioned, my mom was big into gifts. She died a few days after Christmas, after being admitted to the hospital mid-December. She'd gone out of her way to have a "big" gift for each of us girls, which we opened the day after she died. We were so appreciative. Here we were, consumed by the sorrow in the absence of the one who knew us best, and even she didn't quiiiite hit it. She'd had a quilt made from my old sorority t-shirts but used some pretty loud colors for the backing to go with the already loud colors in the shirts. She got my younger sister luggage (I think?) and a fire engine red KitchenAid mixer for my sister whose long-standing favorite color is black. Here's the thing about these last gifts: in all their imperfection, the love of my mom is so loud, it's still felt, nearly six years later.

As I've talked about, gifts are often tangible. With that, we sometimes feel pressure to keep things forever because they were given to us as a gift. As someone who has cleaned out her parents' house, I hereby grant you permission to get rid of what's no longer serving you. The impact of the gift doesn't disappear, simply because we part ways with them.

So, like with everything, there can be lots of difficult elements of receiving gifts. We worry about making the gift-giver feel like they've knocked it out of the park and not being wasteful or unappreciative. But take a moment and think back to receiving a rad gift. Did you feel loved? Seen? Understood?

See, while the beauty in gift-giving or gift-receiving comes from the tangibility of love, it's not about the material things at all. It's the love the gifts represent. And that doesn't go away with getting rid of things. It doesn't even go away with death.

I pray this holiday season you are able to let go of the stress. Know that there's no such thing as the perfect gift. There's no need to "knock it out of the park." Let your love do the talking. Let gifts be a way to communicate the love you feel for your people and openly welcome the love others communicate to you.

-J

**Also, a blog post about gift-giving and my mom would be incomplete without mentioning the time she told my sisters and me that our dad was going to have OPEN HEART SURGERY over Christmas, so we'd have to celebrate with presents at Thanksgiving, only so she could surprise us with a trip to Puerto Rico??? The picture of how GIDDY she was, as we were surprised not only with the trip of a lifetime but also with the utter relief that our dad was healthy just encapsulates who she was.