I think we all love presents.  Some of us love receiving them more and some of us love giving them more.  The best part is giving or receiving a present that is just right.  That you love it, or the person you are giving it to, loving it as you imagined they would when you got it.

Just as a side note I love presents almost as much as I love the card that goes with it.  I love making cards, I love giving cards and I love getting cards (and letters!).  One of my favourite cards is the one I made for my Mum a few years ago I talked about it in Better Presents.  I just love making home made cards!

But there is one thing about getting presents which over the last couple of years (well decades for me) is that they are mostly just things.  Can you remember what you got for your last Birthday from the one you love, or your kids, or what you gave them.  Well, up until a few years ago I would have probably said no, but over the last couple of years I can tell you in the most minute detail the presents that counted the most.  The reason is that a few years ago a girl I worked with was acting weird.  She had this stash of dry biscuits and home brand tuna in the cupboard which she was having for lunch on the days she actually had any lunch.  She was not coming out for coffee or a drink after work.  Any plans for a farewell or birthday lunch were always undertaken without her, including the donation for the present.  Suddenly one day it all changed and she was back to ‘normal’.

So it did beg the question about what had been going on.  I, of course did ask it and got the reply I didn’t expect, but, it was also the reply that changed my life.

Just digressing, it is important to notice the small moments or individuals that change your  life.  I find it interesting when I look back and often I only realise when I look back, that it was at a particular moment that something did change my life, and often momentously.  It is often that we don’t notice these moments until we take the time to look back and try and figure out how we go to the present.  But, other times your life changes because you make a decision and say, ‘time for a change.’  This story about presents and the girl in my office is about making such a decision.

Anyway…. she told me she could go back to normal spending because she had bought the tickets for her and her husband to travel to the Maldives for his 50th birthday.  She had saved all her lunch money, drinks money and anything else she could scrap together to buy the tickets to surprise him.  She had to do it this way to keep it a surprise so the money would be obviously missing from their bank account.  She also told me that this is what they always did for birthdays.  Maybe not always such a big surprise, but always a something involving an EXPERIENCE.  She said that the gifts they alway gave and received would get lost in time, or broken, or just wore out.  But she said the memories of those ‘special experiences’ were never broken, never wore out and most of all never got lost in time.  The present of the experience was a gift forever.

I got to thinking about all the presents I had received or given over the years and realised that some, the ones I actually remembered, had an ‘experience’ attached to them.  I remembered the scooters my Dad had bought us when we were young, and I realised I remembered them because they were second had, and he had painted them, and the small amount of money they had cost was a lot of money to them – I can only just picture the scooter, but I can feel the scooter like it was yesterday.  I also remember the red plastic football my brother and I had.  We could never quite work out why it didn’t sound like a ‘real’ football when we kicked it.

The other experiences, some presents, some just holidays, some just time with family and the gifts from my past, I remember like I unwrapped them yesterday.  So, I got to thinking that it is not too late to stop looking for my presents in the shops and start looking for them in the memories I want to make.

So, of recent years my family will always remember swimming with the dolphins, going to the circus and travelling to Bali.  The presents of our experiences get to be unwrapped again and again every time we think about them.

The presents of the future we don’t have to search the internet or the shops for, we just have to be there.

Give me a real card in my hand with a note you wrote; give me a big table with as much food as laughter; don’t give me selfies give me one big group shot; stay for 5 minutes or 5 hours but be present the whole time you’re there; give me a hug when you arrive and another when you leave and you give the best present of all – yourself, your time and your memories.