Christmas Tip 6: Giving Presents with Presence

Christmas is supposedly time to give and receive presents. For many people giving presents is a bit (or a lot) of a chore. There’s all that choosing, shopping, queuing and wrapping to take care of. The old expression “it’s the thought that counts” gets left behind.

Here’s a simple way to put the thought that counts back into the present.

When you have finally gone through the process of getting the present and at last you are ready to wrap it. Pause for a moment. Bring to mind the reasons that you got this present and who it is for. What would you like them to get out of it and what would that do for you? Maybe an example might help.

Perhaps you’ve brought a new football strip for your eight year old son. He loves playing football and he’s mad about his team.

What would he get out of this present?

He’ll be so excited and thrilled, he’ll probably want to wear it for weeks and never take it off.

What will that mean to you?

I love to see him happy, and playing football with him makes me feel really connected to him.

Do you get the picture? The trick is to find out the feeling or state that the present will give them and you.

When are in touch with those feelings, wrap the present. Whenever your mind wanders bring it back to those feelings and wrap the present up in them. When you’ve finished hold the present and remember why it is important to you both.

Years ago I heard a story of a family Christmas that really impressed me. Rather than buy a load of presents this family chose to make a present for each of it’s members. As I recall it was quite a large family with adults down to a four year old boy. Everyone made what they could according to their abilities and what they thought the recipient of the present would like.

On Christmas day rather than hand out presents willy nilly they went round one by one. The youngest child was the first to receive his presents. Each person gave him his present and told him why they had made it and why they thought he would like it. Then the next eldest child received their presents and so on over the course of the day until the oldest adult finally got their presents.

Now that’s giving presents with presence!