Make sure it comes from the head... and the heart

‘ Tis the end of another year, So what will this new one bring? We all have our memories, And to some we’ll always cling; So let us start this New Year, With a prayer for strife to cease, Then we can live together, In a world that’s full of peace!

“You can know something intellectually,” Tom told me, “and still not understand it emotionally.”

For the past few years he has dropped off bags of selection boxes at a care home for young teens. Security and privacy means he never gets past the front door. But that’s fine. He just wanted to add something sweet to the lives of kids who wouldn’t be home for Christmas.

This time, turning away in the dark he glanced in a window. It was a child’s bedroom – with a Winnie The Pooh sitting at the foot of the bed.

“It was like that bear squeezed my heart, “Tom said. “Then I understood, emotionally, the good I was trying to do.”

This new year, let’s make sure everything we do engages both the intellect and the heart. All of us, in other words.

WERE you ever the naughty child who knocked on people’s door and ran away?

The last time Rob did that was a couple of days ago – and he’s just turned 55!

You see, he has a decent job and pretty much everything he needs.

He also has lots of friends who wanted to buy him gifts at Christmas. So, he asked them to buy him vouchers.

Then, one quiet post-holiday evening he went around the neighbourhood, to the houses he thought would benefit most, posting the vouchers, knocking the doors, and running away.

“One man did shout a very puzzled ‘thank you’ after me,” Rob said, adding, “I prefer that to what people used to shout at me when I did that!”

I HEARD a friend of a friend say: “I’m going to lie under the Christmas tree for a while. Just to remind the family I am a gift too!”

It’s a festive thought well worth taking into the new year. Everyone you meet, everyone you have in your life, is a gift.

Of course, some gifts are inappropriate, some need to be returned to the store, some eat up all your batteries.

But some are just what you need – and some change your life.

This year let’s re-examine our attitudes to gifts – the giving and the receiving. What are the good points? What might we do differently? Then try applying those attitudes to the living, breathing gifts that cross our path every day.