"Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide open heart that thinks of others first. The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world of the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of
hearts for almost two thousand years... Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart. "
- George Mathew Adams

My mother taught me that in life there are two kinds of people. Those who give and those who take. She emphasized that life had a way of bring who you are to the surface at special times of the year like Christmas.

She was very much a Giver (By the way, read the book "The Giver" by Lois Lowry, it's fantastic at the concept) and spent her entire life in the act of improving the lives of others. Her first profession was a nurse, her second, a wedding florist. She made others lives better and she was a great example to me always.

So what am I on about.

The gathering of family is a time to find the truths in each other that make a family a whole. We are five now and I can not express enough how much more whole we are as compared to the past. I watch my kids and their efforts and I know I have raised givers. I am so proud of them.

My mother's legacy weaves its way through the hearts and minds of my children and will always be the corner stone of the philosophies of my family. I can't help but feel her spirit so intertwined with our spirit of Christmas because at that time she came alive and turned Christmas into the experience we search for always.

May we all find within us the "giver" and turn Christmas over to it's true meaning.

Merry Christmas everyone!