Day: December 27, 2011

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Welcome Back

As folks go back to work for the few days until New Years we begin the come down from the capitalist carnage “high”.

This year I baked cookies and tried to give of myself instead of running up the credit cards. I bought few gifts, I made the Christmas card and in general I enjoyed this Christmas as much as any other.
I got some nice material gifts but they weren’t excessive. 
I got the strongest reminder about the importance of giving of yourself when I dropped some cookies and a card off to a gentleman here in town. He was at his shop wrapping packages for his kids and appeared a bit frazzled. We’ve done business a couple of times and he impressed me as a man of honor and decency.
This guy was a Rodeo Rider until the past few years. 
He took a look at the cookies, so obviously homemade and in just a couple of steps was around the counter hugging me. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart”, he said and he meant it. The look on his face was a gift to me. 
Hell I’d even miscounted on the cookie tins so I was handing him a big ‘ol ziplock of cookies and a card nothing more. It didn’t matter to him, he appreciated the time, and that I’d made time to drop a small token off and wish him a Merry Christmas.
It was the look on his face that took me right back to Kentucky and Tennessee. 
While I’d spent time growing up in those places, I discovered a kind of people who valued your actions more than the material goods. 
Whether it was me as a scrawny 12 year old responding to a call of help from a complete strangers barn, or 14 year old me telling my best friend that he was joining my family on a sumer vacation to Florida. 
The “Worth” was in deeds not in trinkets from the store.
What a lot of folks seem to have forgotten is that when you give a gift of yourself it’s almost immediately rewarded by the look of appreciation on peoples faces. 
Jack, here in town reminded me of my roots this Christmas. Unknowingly he took me to a place in my heart and head where I got to appreciate the season again. Jacks gift was among several that I got this season that I’ll treasure. 
The gifts of time, company, companionship, and friendship as it turns out are worth more to me than  the “Made In China” stuff you can buy in the mall.