More Than What’s Inside
I’ve been thinking about gift wrapping a lot lately. With Christmas only four days away it’s so easy to pick up holiday gift bags, far easier than it is to measure and cut beautiful paper and wrap it with ribbon around one or more boxes. If I want to save both time and money, I can easily justify gift bags because they don’t require a bow and the tag comes already attached. What more could I want? Ah, but then I think about the person who is going to receive the gift. What message does the ‘stash-and-dash with tissue paper’ approach send…that I was too busy to truly care…or that their gift was just one among several that needed to be covered with something.
Throughout the year there are many ways we affirm the value of others, but at Christmas the time we take to decide on a gift, how well suited it is to the person receiving it and how we wrap it are all indicators of how much we care about them as individuals. And since the most meaningful gifts are to be found in relationships, why would I even consider doing my Christmas wrapping as though it didn’t count for all that it represents.