I started wrapping Christmas gifts today.  I’ll be honest, the more I wrap, the more present seem to accumulate.  I love to wrap gifts and it’s no surprise, it involves ribbon.  I’ve always been a huge fan of presents that look really special.  When our niece and nephew were young, they used to point out the presents I wrapped because they were so different from the others.  Mine always had huge bows that were wired and the gift wrap made a statement.  The rest of the family consisted of men as my mother-in-law had passed away and both of my husband’s brothers were divorced. Their packages were either gift cards or all of them had the same gift wrap and no bows or the bows fell off in transit.

I also love to see reflective gift wrap so the lights of the tree catch the paper and make the room seem even more festive.  I like to use a wide variety of papers so no two packages look alike either.  It’s even more important to me now because the vast majority of my gifts are for a family that Rich and I adopt for Christmas.  We want their Christmas morning to be special and memorable and wonderful.  We spend a little bit of Christmas day talking about how we think the little girl will react to her new bedroom or the doll we found for her or the art supplies she wanted.  Our parents have passed away and we don’t have any children so it’s important to us to give a deserving working family a Christmas that they will remember.

When I was a kid, my mother always surprised a certain coworker with special Christmas gifts the woman had mentioned throughout the year.  This lady had no family and was pretty much alone.  She never knew my mother was her Santa and I always loved that she didn’t.  It gave my mother so much joy and I can only imagine what it gave to the receiver of those gifts.  It was my favorite part of Christmas.     I honestly can’t remember the first year we adopted a family since my staff and I always had a family we bought things for every Christmas.  When I quit working, I found an agency to go through who would help me find the perfect working family for us.  We like to make sure we really do a great job so we limit the number of family members and we like to have a little girl to buy dolls and dresses and we like to spoil the parents as well.  Every year we get a thank you note that makes me cry.  Since it’s anonymous, the agency passes the letter to us and these families take so much time to make sure that their gratitude is heard.  We are so grateful for them in allowing us to celebrate Christmas through them and hopefully, someday, they too will be able to adopt a family or person for Christmas as well.  Wouldn’t it be great if everyone could pay it forward in some way.  It doesn’t have to involve money.  It can be taking the time to call a friend who needs someone to listen.  Or an elderly person who has no one to talk to.  The woman in the checkout line in front of you who needs 20 more cents and is digging in her purse for it.  Someone to hold the door for you.  This Christmas, if each of us took a moment to think of one small thing we can do that could enrich someone else’s life, isn’t that what Christmas is all about?  I really hope it is.

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