The best gift ever

"Oooh, look at that one!" I said to myself in Mrs. Langren's fifth grade class at Atwood Elementary.

It was magnificent. Sitting atop the Christmas grab-bag pile was the biggest, best present. Beautifully wrapped. With a gorgeous bow.

It was destined to be mine. Mine, mine, mine.

I tried to imagine what could be in that box. I couldn’t stop staring at it.

So when the teacher started the drawing and called my number first, I leaped up and grabbed that glorious present before anyone else could take it.
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I love, love, love the traditions around Christmas. The social schedule is intense. Much merriment.

But one of my favorite traditions is mine alone: A random night before the holiday, Jim goes out for beers with his good friend Chris.

I stay home to wrap presents.

But it’s so much more than wrapping. I make hot chocolate. I watch the movie You’ve Got Mail.

Then I spend a couple hours working quietly with the tape and scissors and tags and bows, thinking about all the people I love who are gonna open those gifts and hopefully smile just a little.
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Back in Mrs. Langren’s classroom, it was finally time to open the presents.

Honestly, to this day, I don’t know what I expected. Maybe I was wishing for a book or even a set of books like the Little House on the Prairie series that I treasured so much back then.

I tore off the paper and breathlessly ripped open the box.

I was stunned. Could it be?

A hat? An ugly knit hat? An ugly, boring knit HAT?

How could such an awful gift be in such a beautiful package?

I was beyond crestfallen; my little fifth grade heart was devastated.

For all the wrong reasons, I had chosen the wrong gift.
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There’s a psychology to giving.

It's not about how much you spend. That's the last thing that makes a great gift and the first thing that most people do because it's so goddamn easy.

The best kind of giving is all about knowing someone really well – maybe even better than they know themselves – and spending more time than money to give them something they needed but didn't necessarily know.

It doesn’t happen very often. To me, that’s the best gift.
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What’s the best gift you’ve ever given? Ever received?
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I’m sure the disappointment showed on my face. I’m sure the girl who brought that gift could tell the knit hat wasn’t what I’d been expecting.

I wonder if she remembers. I wish I could tell her what that gift has come to mean to me after all these years.
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It’s shameful that I can’t remember more of the presents I received as a kid.

Of course there are more than a few standouts. Mrs. Beasley. I loved her little voice, asking me somewhat conspiratorially “Do you want to know a secret?”

The Barbie townhouse – with a real, working elevator!

The thick World of Pooh storybook ("Hedy S_____ 75 Christmas" written in pencil on the cover page) that introduced me to Christopher Robin and his Silly Old Bear, plus the idiotic but lovable Piglet and irritating, know-it-all Owl.
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Yet every year around Christmas I think about that ugly knit hat.

It was one of the best gifts ever.
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I am listening to: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Barenaked Ladies with Sarah McLachlan
I am reading: Christmas in Harmony by Philip Gulley
And I am: Grateful