Of course, getting gifts is nice during the holiday season but as I have grown older I have realized what is the point? I am a grown independent woman who yes, does not make a lot of money, but nonetheless can go out of my own way not bothering anyone and get what I need. So when the question came about of what I want for the holidays these past few years my mind blanked. I tried and I tried time after time to find something just anything that I wanted. I would spend hours online window shopping only to still come up with nothing. This being said I had things that I “needed” but never found myself writing them down on my very own wish list.
So at this age one may conclude, what is the purpose of the holidays? Of course I do like finding gifts for others in which I think they will love, but that still is not what makes the holidays special for me. What makes the holidays special for me is the volunteering my family does to wrap gifts for others. What makes the holidays special is engaging in the traditions my family has in which we paint cookies with frosting, decorate the tree and house together, where we hang the colorful lights together on the house, and most important just spending time together despite our differences, in a house of highly opinionated, clashing, and jumbled personalities that we put aside during this time. It is these moments that make the holidays oh so special and not the gifts that you forget who gave you what each and every year after.
With this idea, I intend to guide my future children to have the same values I have, and this being the same feeling of joy to engage in the very traditions that our family creates for the holidays, not the greedy holiday expectation and therefore association that this time of year is for gifts. Otherwise, when they grow up they will find little meaning in this time period that is so much more than just what is advertised and has been overcommercialized.