Merry Christmas! I hope that you are enjoying this special day.
This year our family did something a little different for Christmas. We focused more on “presence” rather than “presents”.
What that means is we focused on being with family, friends or the community, rather than buying a lot of stuff. Of course with the economic times being what they are the idea was pretty good for the rest of the family.
This week we spent some time doing for others in the community. Little things we might not otherwise have done because we were too busy.
We gave a little time and energy for others We went out of our way to be more involved with our friends. We called, wrote, texted, twittered and just said Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays.
As a family, we will be cooking a big meal together. Everyone is either cooking with us or bringing a part of the meal.
Presence, it has been much better than presents already.
You can read more in my column in The New Virginian here.