Referral Friday is an ongoing series inspired by John Jantsch's Make-a-Referral Week. For more about that, and loads more referrals for everything from cobblers to coaches to gee-tar teachers, start here. Pass it on, baby! I've mostly given up on giving gifts for the holiday season.
Personally, I have everything I need, and most of what I want; the rest, I am being very careful to let into my life only after careful consideration. An intense bout of decluttering does nothing so well as point out how very much your stuff can own you if you stop paying attention.
I also am of the belief that while it's lovely to receive and give gifts, it's stressful for most people in the context of this season of high expectations. If you have kids, fine: you get a pass. The BF has gotten some lovely gifts for his kids, but even those are much more carefully chosen "big" gifts they've thought about for awhile: an iPod Touch (with an accompanying email address, which may be the biggest deal) and a "today my son, you are a man" gift to the World of Warcraft. (Ugh. But I liked enough weird stuff when I was their age that I can't really say anything.)
What I want most around the holidays, or any days, these days, come to think of it, is time: to think, to noodle, to dream and rest and frolic and plan, and to do it all as the spirit moves me, solo or in partnership.
But I also want pears.
Big, fat, juicy, golden-with-a-blush-of-pink pears, each wrapped in its own foil jacket, nestled in its own green-tissue-papered cubby, delivered to my door from magic trees in Medford, Oregon by fruit elves. Okay, the USPS, by way of Harry & David.
We have given these pears to each other in my family for, well, I forget. Long enough that it's unthinkable to give up the tradition. I may have skipped a year right after the Great Giver of Pears, my dad, passed on to that pear orchard in the sky, but it just ain't a holiday without those ungodly delicious, indescribably glorious, HEAVY pieces of What Heaven Must Taste Like.
Today (Friday, December 18) is the last day you can get free Christmas delivery on your Harry & David purchases. I suggest you jump on it while you can.
Ho ho ho.
And you're welcome.
xxx
c