Francis Gay A daily gift of love is both precious and priceless

Now we are well into the season – I hope you have an Advent Calendar. They are a beautiful part of the celebrations. And not very expensive – or so I thought!

David and Julie have a wooden Christmas tree calendar. It sits about a foot and a half tall and has 24 little drawers in it. It used to belong to Julie’s mum. These days she puts a chocolate in each drawer along with a little note, each listing a different thing she loves

It was a cold morning. The sun was just beginning to show.

I was waiting for the car to be serviced and every café I might have spent the time in was closed. So, I went for a walk.

At the end of the road was a tree, silhouetted against the lightening sky, all bare, crabbed, switched off for winter.

Or, that’s what I thought. It was December, after all! Then I got closer and realised it was actually covered in little white blossoms. In a time of long nights and dull days, it was still pushing forth beauty.

I felt sorry for misjudging it. And wondered if I did the same with people, judging them on how I expected them to be, rather on how they actually were.

To different degrees, perhaps we all do. But those little blossoms taught me an important lesson in dealing with people – always look closer! about David. “And how do you compete with that?” I asked David.

“Well, each year I make sure she gets a big, gift box from a beauty products company with 24 different pampering products inside.”

“Sounds expensive,” I suggested. “Very,” he agreed. “Julie spends a tiny fraction on me of what I spend on her, but...hers is still, by far, the more precious of the two.”

Susan runs a cafe. Through all the recent ups and downs, her clientele has stayed loyal while other places have suffered. Why? Lots of reasons, but...

She has one regular who only came to her after being banned from several other places because of her troubling behaviour, like repeatedly leaving without paying. Susan took the time to get to know the lady and discovered that she lived alone, and that she had dementia.

So, quite often, after sitting a while, she actually didn’t know if she had paid or not. So, together, they worked out a system. Now the lady gets to sit in the warmth of friendship for as long as she likes whenever she visits. Susan’s doing well because she treats people as individuals and she gets to know them. That, plus hard work and a beautiful heart will take you a long way in the café business!

I thought I would share Alison’s take on learning to share. “Growing up, we had lots of cousins, but none who lived near us. We would all meet up once a year but we generally visited gran and papa’s house at different times throughout the year. They had a spare room which they turned into playroom for us. “Every time we visited, there would be new fun toys waiting. They were ‘our toys’ while we were there but they were our cousins’ toys when they visited and we might have to answer to them when we met if we broke a favourite.

“So, in effect, we took care of their stuff and they took care of our stuff. But it was the same stuff!

“If only we could see this world as a ‘playroom’, provided and maintained by someone who loved us.

“And all we had to do was enjoy it – while taking care of it for each other.”