The most precious gifts carry no price tags
December 16, 2009
By Judy Halone
Of all our many wonderful holiday presents we can exchange this season, I believe the most precious are those that carry no price tags. Don’t you think so, too?
I think back to when my dad and mom used to drive up into our driveway after a three-hour trip.
“Papa! Grandma!” Our children ran outside to greet them.
Mom and Dad dropped their suitcases and scooped each of them, one by one, into their arms. They must have kissed them a thousand times.
Now that I’m a grandmother, I know why they were smiling so much — they knew the most precious gifts carried no price tags.
I think of the Christmas Eve when my husband handed me a note that read, “I’ll be home for Christmas.”
Do I remember any of my other gifts that year? No. But I do recall the close time our family enjoyed together.
Another present? The year our three-year-old daughter somehow managed to scoot a kitchen chair next to the counter. She’d found my homemade fudge on the cooling rack. Her chocolaty, little-girl grin told me that no price tag could ever match such a moment.
There are other presents I recall, like the Christmas my husband and I cradled our newborn son; the December-evening walks around our neighborhood with family; and the last Christmas we spent with Dad, who was so sick from his chemotherapy. We didn’t know then that it would be his last holiday with us.
That’s when I remember seeing the utmost joy light up his face, as he looked around the living room at his family, while we read aloud from the second chapter of Luke before opening our gifts. I also had a hoot listening to him laugh so hard when we’d watch “A Christmas Carol” with Alistair Sim. The part where Scrooge scared the chambermaid on the staircase always cracked him up. Those were such great times, and I tear up just thinking of them.
These are the kind of moments I want to gather this holiday season–the gifts that really matter. I hope that you, too, will be blessed with the gifts that matter most this year–the wonderful holiday presents that are ours to exchange.
Because I believe the most precious of all gifts are those that carry no price tags.
Don’t you think so, too?
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