6th Day of Christmas Memories

In the winter of 1993, I was a freshman in high school. Christmas of 1993 was memorable for me because of the gifts that I gave that year.

At the beginning of December, my friend Heather and I participated with our Young Women's group in a "12 Days of Christmas" activity to spread some holiday cheer to two families in our ward. Heather and I lived across the street and one house down from each other, and both of the receiving families were within 3 blocks of our houses. For 12 days that month, we gave fairly inexpensive items to the two families by ding-dong-ditching them and leaving the gifts on their doorsteps. Heather and I were in charge of two of the days; we gave apples one day and a loaf of bread the other day. We had so much fun ringing the people's doorbells and then running and hiding. One of the families always picked up the gift and went inside immediately. The other family tried to discover who it was that was doing the activity. I remember being with Heather and trying to stifle my laughter until they (the 2nd family) finally stopped looking for us and went inside. Then we were free to come out from the bush we were hiding behind, and we laughed out loud together as we walked home. Heather and I shared some really great moments together throughout the years of our youth!

Beginning in my Junior High years, giving gifts to friends became a popular thing to do. By my Freshman year of high school, I had a list of 20 or so friends to give gifts to. It was tricky to come up with a large quantity of gifts that would be affordable, too. I remember giving candy one year and small matted pictures of Jesus one year. But the Christmas of 1993 was the biggest and best year for ideas I'd had yet for friend gift-giving. Remember how I said my Grandpa Rose was excellent at woodworking? Well, he'd created a whole bunch of small wooden rocking horses and had given them as gifts to his children and grandchildren, but there were several extras left over in his shop. After they sat on a shelf in his shop for a few years, I asked him what he planned to do with them and he said I could have them. There were 7 of them, and I was thrilled that he would give them to me. I decided that for Christmas that year, I would decorate them and give them to my sisters and my bestest friends. I purchased doll hair and ribbon and craft flowers, and for weeks I worked on finishing the decorative rocking horses. I combed and cut and glued hair onto the horses for the mane and the tail. I tied bows and cut ribbon and glued it to the fronts of the horses. I arranged the artificial flowers and added them onto the fronts of the horses, too. I was so proud of those horses when they were completed because I'd invested a lot of my time and money in them. I had worked on them in the evenings after school every day, perfecting their appearances, and I grew to love those horses so much! I kept one of the horses for myself, gave two to my younger sisters, and gave four to friends. I was excited to give them away to my loved ones because I felt like it was a true gift of love, but at the same time, I was also sad to depart with them after spending so much time with them!

The best part about giving gifts out of love is that it makes the heart grow, and the gift itself becomes more meaningful. I remember not caring so much about what others gave me that year because I was so focused on what I was giving instead. And I loved that feeling! The Christmas of 1993 is so memorable for me because it was when I first experienced the joy of giving gifts out of genuine love.