The Best Christmas Gift You Ever Got?

Do you ever look back at the previous years and try really hard to remember what you got last Christmas? Can you remember? I know unless it's something pretty significant, I don't I'm sorry to say. I have this book that has recorded the last 18 years of Christmas celebrations and it's always fun to go back and remember what was going on during our lives that year. Some were pretty bleak, when times were extremely hard and we could only afford to give our kids presents. My husband Steve and I created a scrapbook of sorts playing the "If Only...." game and listed pictures of what we would do if money were simply not an object. Kinda wish we would have kept those.

I can remember back to some incredible childhood presents like my favorite bike, an ice skating Barbie, Gund bears my step dad faithfully got me every year with a small check attached. I absolutely LOVED those. I remember getting a "Duke" rescue dog. He came with attachments so you could set up a zip line in your house, and open his mouth to attach a bit that would allow him to sail down to the ground. Oh how I loved that gift.

I remember life saver books that were always in our stockings, little bags of Santa coal that was really gum, PEZ dispensers and those really large candy cane sticks you could eat for hours. I remember that when I was a kid, Christmas Eve night was the worst. Trying to go to sleep early and staying asleep knowing that in the morning, Christmas waited.

Yet one thing stuck in my mind years later, that it was those rare moments that really lasted after all these years. More than once it wasn't an actual tangible gift but time spent with family or friends that really made Christmas memorable. It will never be about the gift but about the time. No amount of money spent will ever make a difference but what you do for others will. Even as I approached my birthday in a few months, I can still remember it as if it happened yesterday. But if you ask me about what I got that year, I can honestly say I don't remember.

What I do remember is how I chose to find 49 unique ways to give back to others on my birthday instead. Those memories and the differences that were made in the lives of the people we touched will be forever embedded in my heart. Because it's really not about what we get, it's what we did with the gift we have received. The gift of the servant heart. How are you using yours today?

"If your behavior does not reflect your beliefs, then your beliefs are of no value."