(If you want to hear Lori read this story click)here

 

 

There have been some generous gifts at our house on Christmas morning. Certainly I am thinking of the little remote control helicopters and cars, and the gizmo that blasts air across the room. One year there was an IPod, and tickets to the Met in NYC. Don't tell my kids but this year three marshmallow shooters are under the tree.

 

Some people are generous with their compassion. Just this week I saw a man struggling to get his disabled sister from the car, to her wheelchair and inside to a holiday party. I asked if he needed help.

 

One of the road blocks that shows up at Christmas is the appearance that your would be receiver does not need anything. Either they already posses a closet full of tailored shirts, and a kitchen with every gadget, or they have such refined taste that a mauve throw pillow would be an outcast in their Colonial Blue living room. 

 

Marriage is a chance to see what your partner needs. Often it is glaringly apparent just how much they need. But the trouble shows up when what you want to give is easy and available and what they need is hard and out of stock. 

 

John needs elbow room from my Honey Do List. Reigning in my expectations of him is like trying to funnel rush hour traffic through a bottleneck, though I am better than I once was. There were periods when I honestly believed that my time was my time and his time was my time. 

 

I suppose that genuine generosity is not so much the result of passing along your third pair of ice skates, or handing down the too small angora sweater, as it is coughing up the effort and cash even as your grip on them tightens.