What Is Most Important To Me This Holiday Season

Spending time with loved ones during the holidays is like receiving the present of your dreams: priceless. It means so much more than the price tag or the time it took to get it. Instead, it’s the quality and care that ensues during the season of joy that stands the test of time.

For most people, the holiday season is a period of nostalgia. It’s mini flashbacks from your childhood of opening decoratively wrapped gifts, eating your grandparent’s home-cooked food, and being with your family around a fire, or at the very least, a dining table. While presents are always a plus during this season of giving, what really matters is giving your time to those who you love most. Whether that means playing a round of cards, chatting while eating dessert, or kicking back with a holiday movie, spending that quality time together is what you’re going to look back on and smile at.

While holidays are usually run by traditions, the moments that families remember the most are the ones that are often unplanned and unscripted. It’s throwing flour at each other while baking cookies and other goodies during the evening light. It’s having an impromptu snowball fight when you least expect it and could probably use another layer of clothing as protection from the cold. It’s sharing laughter at jokes around the dinner table that you’ll probably forget the next day but will still feel the warmth all the same. It’s landing on Park Place AND Boardwalk while playing Monopoly with your children!

Although receiving the gifts you’ve been eyeing for the past several months may be a plus, you’ll forget about what those presents were in the next 10 years, maybe even 5. What you’re really going to look back on is who was around your Christmas tree, Menorah, or another relic – not what presents sat underneath it. The most precious part of our lives is how we spend our time, not our money.

During the upcoming season of shopping and preparing for whatever holiday you celebrate, make sure you focus on what’s most important, which is the people rather than the price tags. Don’t feel the need to break the bank or lose your mind over finding the perfect present. Think about your loved ones and what reminds you of their personalities, what they may need or what they may want. At the end of the day, what they’re going to enjoy most is not what they open – it’s spending time with family and friends.

Give the gift of love, care, and quality time this holiday season. Don’t allow yourself to become so stressed by the mechanics of the holidays that you lose sight of what’s important – and that’s loving those around you deeply and unconditionally.

I hope that you have a most beautiful holiday gathered around with the ones who mean the most to you!