By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer

Other than his ma, he’d never given a woman anything but a hard time.
–Wil Bergman, Snow Angel

Christmas-gift shopping is often a man’s least-favorite activity. I speak from the experience of living with a husband and son. To be completely transparent, I speak from the experience of living with a daughter who doesn’t much care for the event either.

Which makes me wonder if they all caught that virus from me.

Nevertheless, in my historical Christmas novella, the hero, Wil Bergman, wants to give a Christmas gift to the woman he’s falling for, but he hasn’t a clue what to get her. Hence the quote at the top of this post. Can’t you just imagine a guy like that?

However, Wil comes up with a couple of ideas based on his observations of the woman he fancies.

In other words, he pays attention.

In the real world, we don’t always pay attention to people we’ve grown accustomed to. We don’t always see the obvious.

When my husband and I were first married, I gave him a 3×5 card listing a few of my personal favorites, as well as clothing and shoe sizes, and color preferences. I intended it to serve as a reference for him, a guide.

He carried that folded card in his wallet for so many years that it fell apart. But it served its purpose. It gave him a starting point, a bit of direction and confidence in our consumer-driven economy.

Today, plastic gift-cards are all the rage. Easy, mailable, quick and painless. I admit, I’ve bought them for family members when I had no clue what they might like – especially those in high school.

But it almost hurts my heart to do so. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I remember the days when gifts were actual gifts not tagged with the mantra, “You can get what you want.”

Gift-giving comes with the risk of rejection. Gift-receiving comes with the need for grace – grace to warmly receive rather than belittle a giver’s choice of present.

Gifts don’t have to be costly or large or fancy or extravagant. They don’t even have to be things. They can be events or moments. Time is one of the most underrated gifts of all.

The Christmas shopping season is already upon us. Let’s make this year’s expressions of love and gratitude true expressions and forget about trying to make impressions.

You must each decide in your heart how much to give.
And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure.
“For God loves a person who gives cheerfully”
(2 Corinthians 9:7 NLT).

~

Time is one of the most underrated gifts of all. Share on X We don’t always see the obvious. Share on X

Talk at the supper table lately had been about gettin’ ready for Christmas Eve at the church and the big feed here the next day. Wil was halfway to his eight-week mark and itching to get shuck of his cast in more ways than one. He’d gone to running a thin branch down inside the plaster to scratch what itched.

Trouble was, that twig didn’t do him a lick of good when it came to Lena Carver. She was an itch he couldn’t reach. Four weeks and he’d be bunking at the livery, missing her quick wit and smile. Her good cooking. The music of her laughter.

It was harder and harder to be around her and not spill his oats right there in front of her, Doc, and the good Lord all at the same time. ~Snow Angel

 

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(c) 2018 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.

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