Remembering what's important during Christmas

My friend, Jennifer, emailed me that she had read this excerpt today on a blog written by a woman in Georgia who has adopted 39 foster children over the years. It really hit home with her. Jennifer wrote "that the most important things in our life are our family and our friends. It is so easy to lose sight of all of that during the stress and pressure of the holidays. Her words really brought back the deeper meaning of the holiday--Taking time to show that you care."

Here is the excerpt my friend is referring to...

"I want Christmas to be family time with great food not the 'gimmes.' I've known adults that still expect a non-existent fairyland time at Christmas where they unreasonably demand that their partners, spouses or children read their minds and bestow perfect gifts that express whatever they need expressing and when their falsely high odd inner demands are not met, because who could possibly do so, then they are crushed by their own heavily laden emotional and material gimmes.

Life is about relationships not stuff. It's about people who care and are there for you emotionally and physically. Just as I refuse to allow my children to stress about buying perfect gifts for me, as I know there are none, so too can I not make up for their lost Christmases and childhood trauma.

I can only continue to provide love and stability, to meet their needs and to teach them about the deeper meanings of life that are more fulfilling than stuff. Stuff will never make them happy, they'll never have enough, someone will always have more and duh you can't take it to Heaven with you anyway. It's just all rubble and straw in the end.

What's inside oneself, one's soul, is truly all that gets to go. That's where one's happiness resides."
From--www.thebodiebunch.blogspot.com