Christmas Presents

December 20th 2018

Christmas time is a wonderful time of year. The festive season is upon us. It's an opportunity to connect in with family and friends, rest and rejuvenate, and reflect on the year that has unfolded. It can however, become a stressful time as we spend money on gifts to shower love on our closest kin. The question is, does everyone feel loved with gifts? This video is all about how to ensure your loved ones feel loved in the way they wish to.

This week now that it’s getting very close to Christmas, I wanted to do a video that might help relieve… might help alleviate a little bit of stress around Christmastime, and it’s about presents, so answering the question what do I buy my family, my loved ones for Christmas.

This can get really, really stressful. I mean if you just walk into a shopping mall you’ll see the flurry that’s there in December with people everywhere trying to find bargains, trying to buy things for their friends, their family, for themselves. There’s a lot of bargains happening so you want to jump in on it. There’s a lot of chaos when you go shopping. So it can be very stressful for people just the thought of driving in the car and getting out and walking into shops when it’s flooded with people.

A couple of weeks ago we talked about the five languages of love, and this is what I wanted to raise today. People feel loved in different ways, and Gary Chapman the lovely gentleman that wrote the book “The Five Languages” have identified five key ways that people feel loved.

The way we give love is the way we wish to receive love. So as I list all five of these and you’ve possibly heard them before but just refresh your mind with all five of them as I’m listing them now, and as you do that think about who might fit in the different categories. So your friends, your family, all the people that you flagged to get something for, for Christmas, just think about these five different languages and who fits into which category.

There’s gifts which is the most traditional form of showing love and giving love and making someone feel special I would say. If you just look at the Christmas tree it’s always full of gifts that are wrapped up underneath and you know, all the kids wake up the next day and open up their presents and it’s full of joy.

Gifts is a very traditional, standard way of showing someone love and appreciation. It’s not just the value of dollars on the gift but it’s the value of the thought that’s behind it. That’s what makes someone who’s a gift receiver feel especially loved. So gift receiving.

The second is quality time. Quality time means we could just be sitting and having a cup of tea on the deck on a beautiful day like I am now at my friend’s house, Mark. And we don’t have to be doing anything special, nothing spectacular, but just being together makes us feel like happy and loved and connection.

Quality time just means that you’re together and sharing a special moment. Some people will feel quality time when they’re watching TV. Some people will say that is not quality time, that is just simply time. Quality time is sitting and having a chat or walking in the park or even going to the movies together. You’re doing something together that feels special and it’s just for the group of friends or your significant other. So quality time is number two. These are in no particular order.

Number three is acts of service. So when you do an act of service for someone they feel loved. Acts of service, things like cooking them a lovely meal maybe on Christmas morning or you know, getting that photo framed that’s been sitting on their bookshelf for ages and they need to get it framed and they know what to do but they just haven’t got round to it and then you surprise them by doing it for them.

Now that could fall into gifts as well but it’s also an act of service. You’ve done something for them that they could do for themselves but they will feel so loved that you must care about me so much to have done that for me. That’s a really beautiful language of love.

Fourth one is physical affection, so hugs and holding hands and just being together and being physically affectionate is one way that someone feels loved. So they might feel very happy to receive a gift but they’ll feel even better if you just give them a big hug or you’re sitting on the couch snuggled up, maybe watching TV and watching a movie, but just that physical proximity is what makes them feel truly, deeply special.

And the fifth one is words of affirmation. So my husband is words of affirmation and you’ve heard me talk about this before, but words of affirmation people need to hear it. They need to hear “I love you”. They need to hear “You’re special”. They need to hear “I really care about you”, “You’re doing really well”, “I’m so proud of you and all the hard work you’ve done this year”. They need to hear it.

But they also can receive that love from reading it. So with my husband I write like little cards out for him throughout the year and just surprise him with it and that makes him feel really loved and special and he gives me a hug every day.

It’s important to think about how the other person wishes to receive love. So if you’re a gift giver it just comes so natural to you, so naturally to you to go out and buy gifts and give them to people, very thoughtful gifts. If you’re a words of affirmation person it just comes so naturally to write a beautiful, little note for your loved ones. But what’s truly, truly I think a measure of love and care is when you’re thinking about how they wish to receive the love, and even though it’s really unnatural for you you still give it to them in the way they wish to receive it.

So those are the five... So there’s four other options besides gift giving and going to your local shopping centre to make your loved ones feel special this Christmas. We talked about gift giving, we talked about quality time, acts of service, physical affection, and words of affirmation. So think about things a little bit laterally and how someone would wish to receive love this year for Christmas, and it might not always be gifts. They might be really appreciative and completely blown away and feel totally connected to you when you give them a gift in their language of love.

So that’s it for today. Have a really wonderful Christmas. I think I’ve got one more video before Christmas is upon us and I really hope that this time is a beautiful time of year for you. It’s all about connection and friendship and family and regardless of your religious beliefs it’s about coming together rather than what the climate is at the moment often where things are tearing us apart. This is a really good opportunity to come together.

Sharanya

xx