It is always better to give than receive. (From the Bible, Acts 20:35)

I find buying presents hard.  This is mainly because I want the person I buy the gift for to enjoy it, or love it, or need it…  this is often a pretty hard task as the world is so full of all the stuff we want and we have most of it already. Going out and buying a present for anybody nowadays is like buying for the person who already has everything.  Getting that perfect gift, for me anyway, is usually a bit stressful.

One of the hardest people to buy for is my Mum.  Firstly, my Mum never really in her entire life, wanted anything.  She loved my Dad, loved us kids, loved her work as a school teacher and was possibly one of the greatest gift givers of all time on par with my wife.  Mum has just been doing it longer.  Mum gave us all things that we needed over the years.  It was Mum’s birthday recently and I was at a complete loss.  Okay there were flowers (we could even have got them on the way to visit her at the Servo and Mum would have loved them) and chocolates (which she would have given to her visitors anyway) and an endless list of ‘granny gifts’ of picture frames, hankies, soap, doilies (what was the real purpose if a docile anyway.) and all the other gifts for the sake of arriving with a present.  All these gifts are really only to pacify our sense of gift giving and because we thought we had to.

I like making cards.  So I just sat down and made my Mum a card and wrote the following:

Dear Mum,

I know that you don’t really want anything for your Birthday:  so I went to the cupboard in my heart and mind, and thought I would return some of the gifts you have given us.  I return to you:

FAMILY
It is the largest gift you have given all of us, and the most precious, because you made it yourself.

LOVE
It is the oldest and most enduring gift, it doesn’t have any conditions and it comes with an unlimited lifetime guarantee.

FAITH
It came in so many parts, and we had to put it together ourselves.

MEMORIES
This came in a huge package, filled with laughter and tears, triumphs and tragedies, but everything always looked brand new with each moment wrapped in your influence.

I found a very small box in the back of the cupboard, which I had lost a few times over the years, but you kept finding it for me.  It was HOPE; and now I share that gift with everyone, when I can.

My cupboard of life is full of the gifts you have given me, and today I am giving back just a few.   But I saved the best for last.

You gave me the gift of being your son.  Sorry, but I am going to keep this one.

Happy Birthday Mum.  Thanks for all the presents.