The word care can invoke multiple feelings in people.  For some this word makes them think of loved ones, making them feel warmth and love. For others, hearing or seeing this word immediately makes them think about their responsibilities, making them feel angst and stress.  We all have people that we care about just as we all have many things that we feel responsible to care for.  And this time of year, especially, there are so many people we want to express our care and concern for that it can feel overwhelming in trying to manage the stress we might feel in finding the perfect way to express this.
Because I care deeply about my family, I want to express this level of caring through my gift-giving.  Yet somehow, we have equated the size, cost and desirability of a gift we present to be an indicator of the measurement of our level of care for them.  This is why most parents make (or try to) the amount of money they spend on gifts for their children, equal.  If I had twins and gave one of them a fancy new laptop while giving the other earmuffs and fuzzy slippers, they would naturally infer that I cared about the ‘laptop child’ more than I cared about the ‘earmuff child’.
This is also why I always make myself a list for the people I want to either buy a gift for or give a monetary gesture of my CARE and appreciation for … so I don’t forget someone!  Of course, these gestures always invoke feelings of angst because I wonder how they will be received. If I really care about a person, such as a special co-worker, do I buy them a special gift worth $50 of caring and present it to them in a secret manner so that my other co-workers whom I baked cookies for, don’t feel that I care $40 less for them (assuming a built-in fee for the cost of my time in baking the cookies)? And if I don’t buy a special gift for my ‘special friend co-worker,’ will she think that I don’t care much about her? And then what if she cares ‘$100 special gift’ for me plus a homemade treat which happens to be my favorite treat in the whole world? Will my gift fall short in its representation of my care about her?
It is easy to say that it is about the gesture of giving and not the actual gift which matters most, but in this somewhat commercialized world, that isn’t really the case. I mean, even some charities list the dollar amount (in descending order, of course) of the gifts they received from people.  Sometimes I am blown away to see how much a neighbor cares about a specific charity, making me feel that my ‘$35 amount of care’ gift classification indicates that I don’t care enough.  This also contributes to why so many people feel free to share with anyone and everyone what they give to others so that anyone and everyone will consider them a person who cares A LOT!
I cannot offer advice on how to erase the stress of expressing your care for and about others during this holiday gift-giving season, but I can offer this; unconditionally caring for and about others can feel magical and when they, in turn, express their unconditional care for and about you, then you have given and received the PERFECT gift.
PRICELESS. PRICELESS.
Kathy Naumann, possessor of NATURALLY curly hair and the understanding that you can’t control everything!

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