The Last Christmas Gift.
It was early December when we got the sad news. My son’s grandpa had passed away.
He had flown many times to visit his grandson, spent days making him laugh, and being silly.
He was always prepared to solve, fix, and buy anything his grandson needed. He was a tall, fair skin, white hair, blue eyed, well-groomed man. His eyes lit up with a spark of pride every time he saw his grandson. His voice changed every time he spoke to him. His grandson was like any other 4 or 5 year old, silly, loved soccer, and loved to make people laugh, a common trade among the two.
The day he passed away was a sad day for many people who knew him well. I personally know little about how he died, except that it was sudden.
When I opened my mailbox there was a key to open the parcel mail box. My son was waiting in the car while I emptied out my mailbox, and sorted out my mail. When I opened the parcel box, I was surprised by several packages that had my son’s name written on them. As I checked to see who had sent us all of these gifts, I was shocked by the name written on the packages.
All these gifts were carefully wrapped in bright colored Christmas wrapping paper. The tags on most of the gifts had my son’s name nicely handwritten. I was stunned and deeply saddened after I read his grandpa’s name on them. What a strange feeling to receive Christmas gifts and good wishes from someone who was no longer here. His grandpa had mailed the packages right before his death, without realizing it was going to be the last Christmas gift he would ever send.
Christmas gifts can be given different value. When one gift wraps a gift for someone they love, it creates a bond between the one who gift wraps it and the one who opens it. The gift establishes a relationship, between two people. It sends a message of you are special to me and I want you to remember me as someone special to you. Gifts let people know they are important too. They took the time to shop for it, buy it and gift wrap it.
What an amazing last Christmas gift, to know that you were thought of. I know many people may say that gift giving is materialistic and some people believe they should opt out gift giving all together.
I believe gift giving is just another way to say, “I love you.” It is just another way to say that we are in some way related. That commercialism has taken advantage of it, should not mean we should stop doing it at all, because isn’t our reason of why we give a gift more important than the commercial ones.