I have a confession to make—I opened my best Christmas gifts early this year. Although to be accurate I really had no other choice because the best (real) gifts I received came incrementally over the course of this past year. I received so many in fact, it would be next-to-impossible to list them all.
The first gift I received came on January One, 2010. It was the gift of a new year. For reasons I can’t explain, some time before it arrived I had a premonition about receiving this gift and I became progressively
excited about it as the date approached. In fact, I became so excited I actually stayed up until 11:59 PM on December 31st, just so that I could unwrap it at the first possible opportunity.
As the time when I would receive my gift drew closer, much to my surprise, everyone I came in contact with seemed to be excited too. Apparently, we were all expecting the same gift. And when 12:00 AM,
January 1, 2010 finally arrived, that’s exactly what happened—everyone received the exact same gift. Incredible! At the precise moment that everyone unwrapped their gift “New Year’s” gift, cheers, smiles and kisses were everywhere, as worries and troubles and fears of every kind were completely blotted out. What an amazing gift!
My next gift came shortly after that one and it came in the form of a “realization.” It was the gift of understanding that each subsequent 12:00 AM held the same promise as that first one. By now you’ve
probably figured out what came next—yes, I continued to receive what turned out to be a wonderful string of “new” days, one after the other, each one filled with promise and the fact that events that occurred prior did not determine everything that would occur going forward.
As it turned out, I opened (early) a total of an additional 364 of these gifts in 2010. But that’s not all. I also received and un-wrapped a liberal measure of other gifts. Some of these were expected, like the
special celebrations of my son’s graduation from high school and my wife’s and my thirty-fourth wedding anniversary; some were not, like unexpected visits from old friends. And, as if that were not enough, I
also received numerous get-togethers and conversations with friends and loved-ones, and even the special gift of making some new friends!
Yes, I was blessed in 2010 with a great many gifts, all of which I opened early.
This holiday season, I wish for you the very best of everything that life has to offer. And I hope and trust that you, too, have already unwrapped the most precious gifts… “early!”
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