The prompt photo this week is fairly obvious…and so too is the Dickensian reference. It seemed appropriate 🙂 What may not be so obvious though is that this is not a picture of a gift on a tree, but an empty box, full of memories.
Thank you to everyone who took part this week. Please click on the links below to visit all the posts and leave a comment for the author! A new prompt will be published later today and I will reblog as many as I can as the entries come in… but given the volume of entries we are getting now, that may not be all of them. All contributions will be featured in the round-up on Thursday.
The vagaries of WordPress mean that occasionally a pingback won’t get through. If you have written a piece for this week’s challenge and it does not appear below, please leave a link in the comments and I will add it to the list.
Come and join in!
Present
When we first moved back to England from France, due to my mother’s health, we managed to rent a new home just before Christmas. We had nothing… barely any furniture, a cooker that should have been in a museum (and that is not an exaggeration) and we were given a small, cast-off Christmas tree. Yet, it was to be our first Christmas in our own home with our son… the first Christmas where he would be old enough to feel the magic.
We couldn’t afford baubles and decorations… we were barely surviving. The Salvation Army, thanks to some unknown angel, delivered a box of food and small gifts for Nick. I baked whatever I could with whatever I could find, determined it would at least be an illusion of magic for my son.
We decorated the little tree with berries and pine cones, a length of tinsel, painted cardboard stars…and any empty boxes we found that could be wrapped with cheap paper and scraps of ribbon.
Some of the boxes still survive, thirty years later… and, like this gilded matchbox, still take their place on my tree.
The magic of Christmas has little to do with how much money we spend, and everything to do with how much love we share.
Christmas is Presence
Awakening us to Love
Present in our hearts
Many thanks to this weeks contributors:
Ritu Bhathal at But I Smile Anyway
Marilyn Armstrong at Serendipity
Bernadette from Haddon Musings
Yinglan from This is Another Story
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
More fantastic entries Sue!
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There are some wonderful tales this week 🙂
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Lovely. I remember our first Christmas together and we were broke. It’s not the cost at all, but the thought, warmth and love. And your empty box? Nah. Never empty when you have memories.
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Exactly. That’s why the ’empty’ box is still on my tree, thirty years later. 🙂
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Interesting how the ‘salad’ days of our youth – no money, lots of love and hope – are the days we remember with such fondness. YES – Christmas is about the magic of love and hope and filling our boxes with the spirit of BEING.
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I’m not sure that much has changed around here in that respect 🙂
Happy Christmas 🙂
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The love is just as strong… xoxo
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🙂
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Our first Christmas together Dom was in Med School and there was no extra money to be had. We made all the decorations for the tree and waited until late Christmas Eve when the tree merchants give away the trees. I still look back fondly at that memory.
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Sometimes have little feels best 🙂
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Thanks Sue. Merry Christmas! (K)
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Merry Christmas, Kerfe 🙂
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Reblogged this on ladyleemanila and commented:
Christmas presents tales 🙂
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Thamk you 🙂
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Such wise words, Sue. Everybody I bet would agree, but how many of us would swap the opulence of a Christmas with all the trimmings and the comforts for the days of invention and magic?
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I’ve never cared for opulence. Warmth, love and comfort will do me nicely.
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Me too. If there’s a big fire, I’ll have a good time anywhere 🙂
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I don’t even have a fake fireplace in this new flat. I sort of miss that.
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If I had to go out and collect the wood, chop it up and make up the fire myself I’d probably make do with the radiator.
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There is that, though I still love the smell of coal fires. Smells like home.
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We’ve burned wood for years now, but the smell of a coal fire would bring back happy childhood memories.
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I get the odd whiff now and then.
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The house trolls.
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Quite possibly 😉
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Thank you! And here’s to a happy holiday season … and some great (better and better) years to come!
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Amen to that! x
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GREAT idea, Sue. I have copied all the links onto my computer (in case my browser gets its feet tangled and I lose this page) – so that i can visit each and every one as time permits. Tink wants to know: how come Ani didn’t enter?
xx,
mgh
(Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMore dot com)
– ADD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder –
“It takes a village to transform a world!”
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Tell Tink Ani is busy with her advent calendar 😉
We do this every week, Madeyn, so if you or Tink wanted to join in… 😉 x
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We’ll be celebrating Christmas through Twelfth Nite (Jan. 6th – Epiphany) – so if Ani has a few thoughts left over, Tink would be thrilled for Ani to do a guest post.
xx,
mgh
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I am sure she would happily do that for Tink 😉 She says thank you x
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Tink says WHOOPIE!
Would Ani prefer me to send you my private email address so you can get it to me – or would she rather double post and I’ll copy it wholesale from your site?
xx,
mgh
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