Gifts

I like giving gifts, I do. 
But I'm ok with admitting- I love to get a good gift even more.

Over the years, I've been pretty spoiled by family and friends with gifts.
Guitars, cameras, concert tickets, etc. Even a large Radiohead poster signed by each member.

As the Christmas season comes into full effect, I've been thinking back to the Christmas gifts I've received that really meant a lot to me. I've been lucky to have not gone any Christmas's without receiving some sort of gift or gesture from family and friends. But I wanted to talk specifically about one Christmas when I was blessed to have friends go out of their way to show me they cared.

High school was rough for me and my family. Particularly senior year.
My dad had lost his job and was without work for a very long time. By the time Christmas came around, we had very little. 
I went into that season focusing on the stuff that really matters- family, friends, and my faith that kept me going.
But that year I was blessed to have two friends each give me a gift that I've never forgotten to this day.

Steve Packer. He gave me peanut butter.
You see, at the time my family was getting a lot of our food from the church. And a lot of that food is made to not 
necessarily taste great but to be inexpensive to make. I didn't mind most of it, but the peanut butter was terrible. 
And anyone who knows me know that I love peanut butter. So occasionally I'd complain to friends about not having 
decent peanut butter to enjoy. Eventually it became almost a metaphor for my struggles. 
I wanted good, creamy peanut butter. But all I could get right now was dry, bitter peanut butter.

Then one night Steve shows up at my door with this giant thing of Jif peanut butter.
He was in my ward and we were really close so he knew the kind of stuff I was going through.
And he got me some peanut butter to help me get through the winter. It was awesome.


Then there was Steven Ackley.
Steven also knew a bit about my family's financial struggles but I don't think he knew much about it until I mentioned 
about a week before Christmas that I was sad we were so broke we couldn't afford any kind of Christmas tree this year.
That very night Steven stopped by my house with a tree that must've been close to 8 feet it was so huge. 
And not just tall, it was full and perfectly green. It really was the most beautiful Christmas tree I had ever seen.
And he was there giving it to us.
All he wanted was for us to be able to have some Christmas spirit, 
and how better than to have a Christmas tree in your home?


And after that Christmas I was blessed to continue to have friends that go out of their way to 
express gestures of love to me that remind me why life is so good and this season is filled with such love.
I'm excited to see what more memories I'll be able to create this year.

There's The Rub.