Even if you don't celebrate Christmas, the holidays are a good time to relate to friends, family and partners in significant ways. Start a ritual to be practiced every year, like a dinner or an annual Monopoly game. You can pretend to be greedy, while spending time with the family all the same. Go volunteer at a shelter, call an old friend, dance to your favorite Mannheim Steamroller or Bing Crosby Christmas album. Gifts at their core represent not how much we care for someone, but the manner in which we care for them.
Young couples exchanging one gift each can mean the world.
A set of paints that a child cherishes because of what he or she creates makes a memory of the moment in life. We clamor and crawl to feed our appetites. We cry inside for gifts forgotten and beg to receive that which we think will make us happy. Our challenge is to get off-line, stay away from the stores as much as possible and simply sit with those we love and soak in the memories. For students, going home for Christmas begins to take on a new face.