Finding the right Christmas gift for someone can be hard. Quite often we buy gifts because we feel like we have to, or we know that someone else will buy a gift for us, so we feel obliged to get them one back in return. Or if your anything like my mum, she gives presents to absolutely everyone just because she loves the joy that it brings.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love receiving presents as much as the next person. But as life happens and has happened to all of us, our priorities change. As life has happened for me, the most important thing for me has become that still, at the age of 29, I have my whole family around me, safe, healthy and alive. Although the flip side to that is that I have my whole family to rip shreds off each other as soon as someone makes an inappropriate joke and all hell breaks loose. The good old family stoush at Christmas time. Love ‘em.
So what can you get for someone when you want it to be a bit more meaningful and from the heart. I’ll never forget the Christmas when my old man gave me and my brothers each a goat. Not an actual goat, but a World Vision card that read something along the lines of “by receiving this card, you have bought a goat for a disadvantaged family in Africa”. At the time it was the worst gift I’d ever received. As a kid all I would have wanted was the new Robo Cop toy. I didn’t understand what the point of the goat was.
Now that I look back I definitely get the message behind the World Vison card and what it actually meant. It was more about appreciating what we have and being grateful for that. It was a gift with a message behind it, although it took me many years to understand what it meant.
So this Christmas, maybe we can give gifts with some meaning or a message behind it. Like a TradeMutt shirt perhaps? Something tangible that has a very important meaning and purpose in allowing people to be able to talk about mental health. Or don’t get them a Trademutt shirt, and just be grateful for the loved ones that we have in our lives, because at the end of the day, everything in life is impermanent. So make the most of every opportunity to have those family fights. And then get over it and laugh about it later.
YNWA
- Dan
