I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that in my childhood one of my favorite presents—for Christmas, my birthday, or “just because”—was books. I absolutely devoured books, rereading my faves over and over, and pouncing on new books like a three-day-hungry feline on an unfortunate rodent.
I still love books, only now I no longer just read them; I write them, too.
I hope you get a lot of good books for Christmas, and I hope you are giving the folks on your list their fair share of books as well. I hope that if someone gives you money, or an Amazon gift card, you will spend a portion of it on—what else?—books.
But of course that’s not all I want you to get for Christmas. The best things in life are intangibles—things that don’t fit in any Santa sack and can’t be brought down the chimney (or delivered by your friendly UPS, FedEx, or mail carrier). Things like happiness, health, love, success, warmth, friendship…all the things that make life a pleasure. I wish these for you in abundance.
Whether you observe Christmas religiously or just secularly (I am thinking now primarily of my Jewish and atheist friends), if you are sitting down to a feast on Christmas Day, may the table be laden with a bounty of good food and may the people gathered around it be convivial and caring. May the people in your everyday life be caring, too. May you find yourself surrounded with an abundance of love, whether that is love of family, love of friends, love of one special person, or all of these. And if you don’t have one special person in your life right now, may the year ahead bring him or her to you.
May this Christmas be your best ever, and may the same be true of the year ahead.
And may your bookshelf (or your Kindle) be filled with new arrivals, so you’ll have plenty of good reading not only over the holidays but into the year to come.
The merriest of Christmases to you. Have a ho-ho-ho happy holiday!