So, if this is the season for giving and joy, my admission and confession is that I have come to suck at Christmas gift shopping and I didn’t do much better this year than I did last year, although I am coming to grips with just how bad I am at it and how much I wish I wasn’t.
It’s not from lack of training in gifting that I suffer from. My mother made me stop and wonder at the way I felt, way down deep, deep in my soul, when I did something, really did something for someone else. “Giving someone is going to cost you,” Janet, my Dad directed.
This Christmas, more than last, struck dumb with lack of imagination, I mostly gave over to inaction and small tokens, waiting for inspiration, even a divine one, to hit me and move me to the mall.
It never happened.
So here I sit, in the aftermath of it all, in the never-never land between Christmas and New Year’s, knowing that any confession will not be complete unless I confide to you, from the other side of this Christmas gifting: the receiving.
It seems my family doesn’t (and never really has) suffered from my Christmas-is-for-children syndrome.
I got presents from them, that it was clear, cost them and that they hoped would make the joy of belief shine in my eyes, so they could see it.
It humbles me. Their hearts humble me. Their love humbles me.
Because for a son who is among those young people looking for a job