Last year was the worst Christmas of my life, and the most inspirational. My wife of 14 years, Jeanne, passed away over the summer. I dreaded the holidays. I was tired, depressed, sad and lonely. I didn’t want to partake in the usual holiday craziness but with a three year old son I had to do something. So I went thru the motions. I bought people gifts. Aidan got his favorite trains. I really didn’t want anything to do with the day. We had spent the morning and afternoon at my brothers house because I could not spend the day at home.

       Christmas day came and went. I made it! I survived. Broken, but alive. Aidan and I got home around 9pm that night. When we walked in the living room I noticed a few presents under the tree. “I guess I missed a few presents this morning” I thought. Then I looked closer. I didn’t wrap those. I didn’t own that kind of paper. The house was locked up just like I left it. I texted everyone I could think of asking “did you leave some presents at my house?!” Nobody fessed up. Aidan and I sat down and started to unwrap those presents and much to my surprise, they were all for me. A few simple presents. A nice sweatshirt, some other clothes and a whole lot of love. To this day, I still don’t know who got into my house and left those presents under my tree. All I know is that somebody really loves me and spent time away from their family to help take care of me. Whoever you are, Thanks. You have no idea what impact you had on my heart that day. It wasn’t the presents. It was the fact you took time out of a very special day to make sure I had a good Christmas, or at least the best I could have under the circumstances. Was that you Santa?

     I’m sharing this story because as we head into the holiday season I hope that people will focus on what’s really important, family & friends. Presents are nice, but honestly, I’d just assume spend the day with the people that mean the most to me enjoy some food, wine and conversation. That’s where the memories are made, not the bags you bring home from the mall. So before you hit the stores and heat up that credit card, step back for a moment and ask yourself this: If this was you’re last Christmas on the planet, how would YOU want to spend it? Life is a blessing. Don’t take these special times for granted. Santa taught me that last Christmas.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 11:24 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.