Gifts from the Heart

I read a story today that touched my heart . It was by a teacher. She was telling about a gift from a student that she considered one of her favorite gifts. Her student had picked out all the marshmallows from her Lucky Charms cereal box and put them in a baggie for her teacher. There is a gift that came from the heart!

I remember as a child getting Lucky Charms and the marshmallows were the best part. I didn’t even want to share them with my sister!

I love giving gifts. I love making people smile at finding just the right thing to touch their heart. Spotting a gift that I know the receiver will make a special connection with means a lot to me.

I don’t give because I expect something back I give because knowing I touched a heart is a reward of its own. The gifts don’t have to be costly to be special, in fact some of the most special gifts I have given have barely cost me anything.

When I was young I made my Dad a little book of quotes. Yes, I have loved quotes for a long time! I remember hearing how he had passed around my “fancy book” (notebook papers stapled together) to friends of his and how important it made me feel.

For my Mom I had bought a photo album, the ones with the sticky pages, where you pull back the clear paper and stick your photos on the page. Unlike today where photos are stuck in our phones and computer.

I went through old magazines and cut out pictures of collector’s dolls. They weren’t just ordinary dolls. They were dolls that I put a special meaning to and wrote a note with. If there was a doll with a dog I thanked my Mom for teaching me a love for animals. If there was a doll dressed in pajamas or sleeping , I wrote about all the times my Mom had sat up with me when I was sick or too upset to sleep. I filled a whole photo album and my Mom has kept it for all these years.

When I was engaged I made a gift for my husband to be. I bought a special journal and copied down excerpts from my journal ( I kept detailed journals) of when we were dating. From the first time I met him up until the night before our wedding. A wedding gift that just cost the price of a journal and my time, but that is still treasured 23 years later.

I could go on, but I think you get the message. I am working on gifts right now that once again didn’t cost much of anything besides my time. They may not be done by Christmas but that’s ok, special gifts are special anytime.

And remember the monetary price of a gift is nothing compared to the priceless feeling that it can give you and the one you give the gift too!