This is Christmas

Growing up, one of my favorite things about Christmas was receiving that huge box in the mail from our family in Maine.  It would arrive from my two aunts and my grandmother, packed to the gills with gifts.

One of the things my sister and I could count on would be a little gift bag or two we could open right then and there when the box arrived.  There would be some chocolate, a chapstick, maybe some hand lotion, something special from my aunt's salon, or an ornament, maybe something our grandmother had knit or our aunts had sewn.  Just some things that would delight us, a few things to hold us over as we wondered what the other gifts held.

Those little things were that extra bit of love--the extra time it took our aunts and grandmother, the extra thought, the extra everything, above and beyond the original gifts--just to tell us how special we were, how much they were thinking of us, and how much we meant to them, how much we were missed.

Looking back, that is one of the biggest lessons my aunts and grandmother taught me: Include the extra love.

Go the extra mile.

I sent two packages this year for Christmas, and yes, they had the extra love gifts in them.

OPEN NOW!  I love you.  I miss you.  I care about you.  I'm thinking about you.  You're special to me.  You are important.

When my friends told me about the joy those little things brought to their girls, and when I heard the happiness that brought to my friends--this is my Christmas.

This Christmas, please go that extra mile for someone.  Show that extra love, show someone how special they are, and let them know you're thinking of them.

THIS is Christmas.