Every Sunday I do my grocery shopping at the same place and at the same time. And every Sunday I do the same thing when I check out – I talk with my cashier. I ask them how their day has been. If it’s been busy for them. Just chit-chat to avoid the awkward silence that exists in the five minutes between the Hello when they start scanning and when they tell me how much the bill is.
While that’s the origin of why I started talking to my cashiers, that’s not why I talk with them now.
Now I make conversation because I like to see their face light up when someone, a perfect stranger, sees them as more than an obstacle between the grocery store aisles and their car door. I do it because I like to see the difference in their demeanor from the customer in line ahead of me to when they start talking with me. And I like walking away and hearing them greet the next customer with more enthusiasm than they had before I showed up and connected with them.
That got me thinking about the time of year that we’re in.
We have two more weeks to search for the perfect Christmas gift for the people that we love. Two more weeks of standing behind overly enthusiastic people ordering Pumpkin Spice lattes. And two more weeks of trying to find more hiding spots for that stupid elf on the shelf that we knew we shouldn’t have let enter our house when Santa sent him this year because the thought of finding two weeks’ worth of hiding spots stresses us out. In less than two weeks, Christmas will be here and our kids will be tearing into their gifts with a twinkle in their eyes and ready to go outside and play with that new toy that we bought which we hope will entertain them long enough for Mommy and Daddy to sip their “special egg nog” and relax for once. Then the parents will exchange their own gifts, a new pair of socks or a robe or something that their spouse thought they needed.
But I’ve become convinced that the present that the people in our lives really need is our presence.
We like to believe that offering our time to a worthy cause will have to be as complicated as signing up to go on a mission trip to Africa. But it’s not true. That’s a lie we like to tell ourselves so we have a good excuse for being selfish and lazy in the smaller, less dramatic moments in our everyday lives. The truth is, offering our time by giving someone the gift of presence can be as simple as sitting on the couch and being fully engaged with a loved one and listening to their thoughts, concerns, and dreams. It’s seeking first to understand before worrying about being understood.
While giving someone your presence might not be complicated, it is inconvenient.
It means you’ll have to be intentional with your intention. No phones. No Facebook. No TV. No thinking about self-imposed to-do lists of things you “have to get done” right now that in reality could have been done weeks ago. Giving your presence might be the best Christmas gift you could give someone this year. And if they don’t celebrate Christmas, give your presence for Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Festivus or Flag Day or maybe just because it’s grocery shopping day.
When was the last time you showed someone how much you cared about them by being fully present? By looking in someone’s eyes while you talked with them instead of connecting with dragonheart57 on Twitter or watching a cute cat video on Facebook while having a conversation that mattered deeply to the other person but a conversation that you were half interested in?
This year, let’s give the people that we say we care about a gift that nobody else can give them – our presence. This year, when we hand someone a gift we can’t wait for them to open, let’s give them another gift, one that they’ll never see coming. One that they’ll be thinking about for hours, days, or maybe for the rest of their lives. Stop searching for the perfect gift. You already have it.
Your presence is the one gift we all need this Christmas.