The holiday season is upon us, which hopefully means a lot of giving and some receiving.  The art of giving a great gift takes root at the point where we understand why we want to give the certain person the gift in the first place.  What message are we conveying to the people we are giving to?  In the rush of this thing called life we have many characters that pass in and out and leave marks on our hearts and our minds.  A great gift shows the person that the moment of life we shared was important and the interaction helped promote an enjoyable outlook on life if only for that moment.

The next question to ask ourselves is, “How do I show them it was important to me?”  Make the gift all about them.  Hopefully you listened to what is important to them.  Gift giving has the great affect of validating the receiver and ensuring the giver that they have enough in life and it’s alright to share(hopefully you have enough introspection to know what your limit is and are not sacrificing.)  Also, a true gift expects nothing for the gift except for the satisfaction of sharing with the receiver.

And for all of you who are bad at receiving gifts, remember that you’re stripping away the aforementioned enjoyment of the giver if you can’t graciously receive gifts.  Love is all around, if we look for it.