Last week, I began a temporary assignment at a company I’ve worked for
previously. They were having a brief afternoon gathering. It was the
exciting, I suspect long-awaited, unveiling of the wonderful “Secret Santa”.
Ahhh, I remember my first Secret Santa experience as if it were yesterday.
I was in the 4th grade. My “Secret Santa” turned out to be one I’d
completely wished had remained a secret. It was a male classmate, and what
did he get me? You’ll never guess. Believe me you won’t, so I’ll save you
the trouble. He got me a yellow SKULL CAP!!! (insert lonely, leftover tear
here…) Go ahead. Get it all out of your system! Ok, now pull yourself
together; it’s REALLY NOT that funny! I can laugh about it now, but for
years I thought Secret Santa charades were the devil’s rain on our Christmas
parade. LOL! I wanted NO PARTS of them unless I was supplying a list. But I
digress….
Anyway, as I watched the women in the office (of course men won’t be caught
participating in such) descend the stairs and assemble for the big reveal, I
made one very simple, very unexpected observation. All I saw were gift
bags. I’m serious. I didn’t see not one gift receptacle that required
anything more complicated than “open bag, insert gift”. No extra time
applied.
It struck me immediately, so I began to write. Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something extra special about a gift that’s been wrapped, even
if someone other than the gift giver wrapped it. To me, it symbolizes that
next layer of thought, those additional, sacrificed minutes of time in a
world where no one seems to have time for the little things anymore. I
thought to myself, “Amidst the busyness of the holiday season, if we aren’t
taking time for the little things, something as simple as covering our gifts
with that extra layer of thought, are we taking time to ponder
and relish the one truly BIG THING, the true reason for the season?” Maybe we should ask ourselves, are we giving the true meaning of Christmas the extra attention of wrapping paper or the express effort of a gift bag?
Just a thought…and a reminder….Merry Christmas!
Good reminder. It’s so easy to get busy…not so easy to slow down, consider & ponder.
I was just thinking about the gift bag trend the other day and feeling sad that very few people wrap gifts any more. I do think it’s just one more reminder of the how “instant” our society has become. Thanks for making the even bigger connection to the REAL reason for Christmas!
Man, I wish I would have bought some shares in the company that makes gift bags..lol. Merry Christmas