Seasonal Gifts, Unexpected Moments in Time
WOOSH! The Holiday season has come and gone ...
Gifts have been exchanged and ... well, some have been returned. Others might have been shoved into a closet for future 'white elephant' gifts and still others will be cherished for a time and then forgotten.
When I look back on all of the Christmases I've enjoyed, only one moment in time rises above all of the rest when it comes to a special gift.
I must have been very young. Maybe five or six. Tearing the colorful wrapping paper away from the box I sucked in my breath as my eyes fell on a pink plastic purse filled with sparkling pretend jewels and jewelry parts. It was a kids craft kit. Simple. Plastic. Gawdy. I never played with it.
As a very young child, I had no clue what to do with it. I didn't know how to put the jewelry pieces together, no matter how much I wanted to. It all just seemed so complicated. Beyond the moment of unwrapping that present, I can't remember ever looking at the gift again and I have no clue of what happened to it.
Why then, if I never played with it, does this gift rise to the surface of favorite gifts?
After years of periodically recalling that moment in time, I believe that what I received that Christmas morning was not a pink plastic purse with fake jewels, but a kiss of confirmation and acknowlegement of my creativity and girlhood. The gift was a promise. A promise of beautiful things, of being a pretty girl, of creating beautiful things.
It was a seed.
Don't get discouraged when someone doesn't respond like you thought they would when you give them a gift. They may have received something very different than the item itself.
And ... when you invite someone to be a part of something, and they turn you down, remember that it might have been the asking that was needed, and not the actual event that you invited them to.
Small moments in time. Cherish each one of them and celebrate them. Seeds are being planted - and by our celebrations and thankfulness, they grow into miraculous moments in time.
Gifts have been exchanged and ... well, some have been returned. Others might have been shoved into a closet for future 'white elephant' gifts and still others will be cherished for a time and then forgotten.
When I look back on all of the Christmases I've enjoyed, only one moment in time rises above all of the rest when it comes to a special gift.
I must have been very young. Maybe five or six. Tearing the colorful wrapping paper away from the box I sucked in my breath as my eyes fell on a pink plastic purse filled with sparkling pretend jewels and jewelry parts. It was a kids craft kit. Simple. Plastic. Gawdy. I never played with it.
As a very young child, I had no clue what to do with it. I didn't know how to put the jewelry pieces together, no matter how much I wanted to. It all just seemed so complicated. Beyond the moment of unwrapping that present, I can't remember ever looking at the gift again and I have no clue of what happened to it.
Why then, if I never played with it, does this gift rise to the surface of favorite gifts?
After years of periodically recalling that moment in time, I believe that what I received that Christmas morning was not a pink plastic purse with fake jewels, but a kiss of confirmation and acknowlegement of my creativity and girlhood. The gift was a promise. A promise of beautiful things, of being a pretty girl, of creating beautiful things.
It was a seed.
Don't get discouraged when someone doesn't respond like you thought they would when you give them a gift. They may have received something very different than the item itself.
And ... when you invite someone to be a part of something, and they turn you down, remember that it might have been the asking that was needed, and not the actual event that you invited them to.
Small moments in time. Cherish each one of them and celebrate them. Seeds are being planted - and by our celebrations and thankfulness, they grow into miraculous moments in time.
posted by Shannon at 8:33 PM
