The Gift of Surprise

If you're friends with me on Facebook, you may have seen my post the other day about Miss 5 and the library. If you're not, here's a quick rundown.

Last week Little Mister and I were headed to the library for Baby Time. Coincidentally Miss 5's library books were due back and I told her that we would drop them back for her. She was disappointed that she had to go to kindy and couldn't come and pick new books for herself.

I asked her if I could surprise her by picking some books out for her to have when she got come from kindy. After a little convincing, she finally agreed that this would be good.

When she got home, she took her library bag off the bench and peeked inside it. Suddenly there were
 gasps and ohh's and ahh's and squeals of excitement as she pulled out each item to see what we'd picked out for her. The look of delight on her face was priceless. Never have I seen a reaction like this from her.It was so much better than any birthday or Christmas gift she'd ever received.

She excitedly returned my "surprise" the following day when she surprised me with taking the rubbish out. Bless her! Some days it really is the small things.

It got me thinking about how we often go out and spend money and often agonise over selecting a gift for someone when the most meaningful gifts I've given have been ones that haven't cost me money, but a small portion of someone's time.

With Christmas just around the corner I've got my thinking cap on this year as to how I can do things differently and give gifts of time to my loved ones. Over the years I've grown to hate the consumerism fest Christmas has come to be - the obligatory gift buying, not knowing what to get certain people, the crowds you have to battle to pick out your gifts; there's so much stress and pressure. And while I love to receive gifts, there's nothing worse than receiving something that you won't use.

So stay tuned, once I have gotten my ideas together of what I will do, I will post them. Perhaps you may want to join the "Doing Christmas Differently Bandwagon" this year or maybe you already do and I am slow to catch on! If you have any ideas or suggestions for me; please post them in the comments, I would love to hear them!