Wednesday, November 28, 2007

The Best Holiday Gift in the World

It’s open season on consumers, with retailers banking on our willingness to spend freely on holiday gifts for family and friends. We get so many holiday catalogs each day I’m surprised the mail carrier doesn’t have a hernia. One toy retailer’s coupon booklet promised that I could save $540 on merchandise advertised inside. I didn’t bother tallying up how much I’ll have to spend to “save” the $540 in the first place.

With four children of my own, I’m quite familiar with the December dilemma: how much to buy, and for whom? When my kids were little, I scoured educational catalogs looking for toys or games that were innovative, worthwhile and sturdy. But all too often, what the kids loved best wasn’t the toy or game, but the box it came in, which often morphed into a fort, a house for Legos, or a makeshift hat.

But as much as we love our children’s excitement as they unwrap their gifts, we know the truth: the very best present from a parent to a child doesn’t come in any box, bag or envelope. It needs no wrapping paper.  It shouldn’t need a special occasion, such as Christmas or Chanukah, to be given.  And when it comes to sheer durability, nothing beats it. This is the gift of our loving attention, which our children want and need more than any electronic toy or status-conferring designer clothes. But it’s precisely this kind of exclusive attention that we are often most hard pressed to give.

Today our lives are so fast-paced that there is precious little time to devote one-on-one to our children. During weeks that were frenzied with activity and I paid less attention than I should have to my children, I have bought them a new plaything that I quickly stopped for at the drugstore on the way home. Sure, they loved to get the present when it wasn’t even anyone’s birthday, but I knew it was a kind of a bribe: you sit and play with this so I can finish my work.

If these “kiddie kickbacks” are rare occurances, no one will be much the worse for wear. But as busy as parents are, we need to carve out time for our biggest project of all: our kids. We need to be there for them when they are small, to read to them and play with them, and we need to be there when they are big, to listen to whatever they have to tell us about school, their friends, about the teacher who they graded them unfairly on the test.

It’s true, kids will probably get bored with even the most “exciting” of toys, but they’ll never, ever get tired of a parent’s loving attention.  So with December now upon us, and we budget for our holiday gift buying for our kids, let’s also budget for the most precious gift of all: time for them.

Posted by judy @ 10:37 AM • (0) Comments  

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