In this newsletter I share two personal experiences about the significance of giving and how it is one of the most important aspects of Christmas time. These could be useful as conversation starters with your son as you think about what is most important for your family at Christmas.

My first experience reminds me of how simple it is to give a gift to someone else and how profound the impact can be. As I was walking my dog this week, I came across a Kindness Rock - those painted rocks you find around town with messages of positivity and kindness on them. As I read the message (which you can see in the image above) I immediately felt happy and my mood lifted a great deal. Whoever had written the message had gifted their time, their kindness and their positivity and it made my day. It reminded me that often the best gifts do not cost a lot of money, are not the biggest or shiniest (this rock certainly looks as though it has been moved around a lot!) and are not always found online or in a shop - the best gifts are often simple, heartfelt and make you feel good about yourself because of the kindness of others. I am certainly looking forward to placing the rock somewhere else so that I can continue to give the gift of kindness.

For my second experience, I need to go back in time to when I was about 8 years old. I had decided that for Christmas that year I would personally buy all of the presents I wanted to give to my family and so spent many weeks doing jobs around home. After no doubt driving my mother up the wall, asking for more and more jobs and negotiating fair pay, I had earned enough money to buy all of the Christmas presents I needed. I brought my mother a truly awful blue and white vase with a fake red flower sticking out of it. It sat on my mother’s bedside table for many years after I had left home. I finally asked my mother why it was still there, considering how ugly it was. My mother’s reply was very clear: she kept it there because it reminded her of the effort, time and thoughtfulness I had put into giving the vase to her. The value of the gift was not the vase itself, but rather the love and kindness I had put into the gift. I have never forgotten that conversation with my mother and the impact the act of giving can have for someone else. It is a story I have now shared with my own children.

I am sure that you will all be able to relate in some way to these experiences that I have shared. I hope that this newsletter helps you to talk with your son about what is important at Christmas time for you as a family, including how it is not the gifts themselves that are important at Christmas but rather the act of giving and receiving.

Jenelle Hooson

Jenelle is a Registered Provisional Member with NZAC (New Zealand Association of Counsellors).

If you wish to discuss the services the School Counsellor can provide, please see your son’s homeroom teacher or Scott Johnson: scott.johnson@medbury.school.nz.