The true meaning of Christmas

This Christmas was one of the best I've had so far.

My funds have been super lacking so I didn't have much money to spend on gifts.

I was feeling badly about this, when my bbff Jeanie called me up asking if I wanted to go to a discount book store with her to get gifts for people. I jumped at the invite because 1) we don't get to hand out much anymore and 2) because I needed to get something for people in my life.

So we went there and only a few books really popped out at me. One was a Mother Goose book that reminded me of my child hood. I got this for Amber because she loves Mother Goose, and has another book of her stories, (this was an ABC book). She opened it Christmas morning and LOVED it! So I was really happy about this.

Another was a book of old short songs that I got for my dad. He loves that sort of thing and the minute I saw it I knew it was for him. I didn't really recognize a lot of the songs in it, but there were some like "My Bonnie" and "Sipping Cider through a straw" that my dad sang to us when we were kids. My mom later came up to me and informed me that mine was his favorite gift. That made me so happy because he is such a hard person to find gifts for!

Attached to every one's gifts was a personalized hand written letter to the members of my family. The reason I did this was because I didn't feel like Micheal's (my brother in law) gift was very personalized. His letter was pretty long, and VERY heart felt. I told him about how I love having him as a big brother, and that he's such a good example to me of so many things. I got all mushy-gushy on him and he love it! He bragged to Amber saying that his was longer than hers.. whatever, but it was fun! I felt like this Christmas wasn't as materialistic as others have been.

I took time to really put thought into the gifts I gave people, and to be honest, you can't beat the fact that I got everything for less than $20! (for 8 people I might add)

I'm going to make this a goal, that from now on, I will make my gifts more sentimental and meaningful than in years past.

The true meaning of Christmas isn't about gifts, or money, or things... it's about people, and love, and family. I hope I can remember that.