WHAT IS THE BEST GIFT YOU WERE EVER GIVEN?

It is a dreary, rainy Sunday here, folks! I had planned on going out and getting a jump on my holiday shopping, but I guess I'll stay inside and write about gifts and giving instead!

Can you think of the best gift you have ever been given? One of the first that comes to my mind is a lovely midriff-baring outfit my mom purchased for me when I was about 12 or 13. We lived in Chicago then, and we had travelled downtown on the train to do some shopping; while there, I had fallen in love with this very mod (yes, it was the 70's) pantsuit. It was white cotton with tiny little red and blue flowers all over it. The top had elastic around the cap sleeves and more elastic underneath the chest-- about 3-4 inches up from my belly button. The pants were probably bell-bottom-ish, though I can't honestly remember. I had just been asked out on my very first date. Perhaps this is telling, but I can remember what we ate but not the boy's name. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Needless to say, I fell in love with the outfit as soon as I saw it, and I desperately wanted to wear it on my date.
My mother, who was (and still is) a budgeter extraordinaire, informed me that this highly impractical outfit did not fit into my clothing budget. She reminded me that I needed to buy a temple dress and several skirts and a pair of jeans and that there was simply no wiggle room in the budget. The belly-baring hippie outfit was impractical and  unnecessary and that was that.
I suppose I whined a bit, but I was a pretty docile child, and I doubt that I engaged in any severe form of histrionics. But I know I longed for that outfit and the image of myself in it that had become stuck in my head. Maybe I thought that with the revealing outfit on my pre-pubescent body, I would be instantly transformed into a femme fatale--or at least a girl who was brave enough to go on a date with a boy.


Several days after the aborted shopping trip, I came home from school to find a green Marshall Field's box on my bed. To my utter delight and amazement, my sweet mother had gone back downtown and bought the outfit for me. I learned a valuable lesson that afternoon; the gift that I most valued was the way in which my mother had sacrificed time and money to make me happy. At that moment, it was actually less about the outfit than it was about a mother's love for her daughter.

I wore the outfit on the date to the hotdog stand in the park across from the Museum of Science and Industry. I swear to you that I have no idea who the boy was, but I still remember the hotdogs!

I am a gifty gal: I love both giving and receiving presents. I can't imagine being someone who doesn't give a flip about birthdays and holidays. Gift giving is as much a part of my DNA as reading or cooking.

When the kids were little, I would spend hours making things for them. I remember when I finished Emily's quilt (or as she called it "Quilty"),  and I sewed a special patch on the back that said "Made for Emily with love from Mom."  It filled me with such a sense of accomplishment to give my daughter that gift. When Josh was little, I designed numerous t-shirts and blankets and stuffed animals for  him: watching him wear or play with something I had made with my own two hands filled me with pride. I can still see the picture of my sweet tow-headed Josh  with  his two very primitively designed stuffed flannel animals: blue bunny and blue kitty.

Ben,  who came out of the womb an entrepreneur, was always engaged in various business enterprises. I loved to sit at my lime green ibook and create business cards for him which he proudly passed out to friends and relatives to advertise "Ben's Jobco" or "Ben's Petco."

I think that one of the reasons I love cooking so much is that making food allows me to feel like I am giving a little gift to the people I love.

So as the holidays once again draw near...think about the joy of giving (and the joy of receiving). What the heck, let's just think about JOY!