The gifts we treasure

The gifts we cherish the most are usually gifts that have a sentimental value. These gifts often remind us of a certain time in our lives and of the people who gave them to us.

When my family left Cuba in 1963, we walked out of our home with nothing except a suitcase for each family member. I was only allowed to bring one doll with me.

I will always remember the second Christmas I celebrated in the United States because when I woke up Christmas morning Santa had made new clothes for my doll.

I know that I received a few other gifts that year, but all I remember is that my doll had on a new outfit.

Forty-five years later I still have my doll. It sits on a bookshelf in my office. Every time I look at it, I think of my mother. I can picture her sitting in the dining room of our little house in downtown McAllen lovingly stitching the outfit together.

The love a gift is given with is what makes a gift meaningful.

We are living in times when we have lost the concept of what is a necessity and what is a luxury.

Most people have a lot more than they need, but they still feel they don’t have it all.

“Our life is frittered away by detail…Simplify, Simplify, Simplify!...” Henry David Thoreau’s motto was to live simply. During his life he went to great measures to prove to society that he could live with very little.

Thoreau also believed that, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

We have become very careless with the way we spend money and in what we place value on.

It’s easy to go shopping for a gift. The stores are filled with items to choose from, but the truly special gifts are the ones that come from the heart.

We need to look for much more than the dollar value when we give and receive gifts.

There are many special people who do things for us on a daily basis that fill our life with the gift of their kindness, their smile, their spirit.

Let’s not forget this holiday season that the thought and care that goes into buying or making a gift for someone is the true value.

The gift that comes from the heart has the most splendor, because it is given with great joy and sincerity.

Maria Luisa Salcines is a freelance writer, certified parent educator and corporate empowerment consultant with The International Network for Children and Families in Redirecting Children’s Behavior, Redirecting for a Cooperative Classroom, and Redirecting Corporate America. Contact her at her Web site at www.redirectingchildrenrgv.org.