What to give this Christmas

gifts that might just make Christmas more meaningful

Michael Ellis

Dec 13, 2024

Hello,

I wanted to keep this short, and failed.

If you don’t have time and want a ritual to inspire more meaningful conversations at this time of year, go here (free).

If you’d like to access all 22 rituals I’ve collated recently, go here (not free).

If you’d like to listen to a podcast about me talking about what I’m writing about here, it’s below.

And if you’ve got a few minutes, read on…

What to give this Christmas?

Much of what I write here and am thinking and sharing about now is referencing Christmas. It’s not really about Christmas, it applies to any gathering. It’s about what you make it mean.

For me, it’s people. Family. Friends. Loved ones. Gathering. Connecting. Reflecting. Acknowledging. Honouring. Humanning. Celebrating. Invitations. Sharing a meal. Bad jokes. Good wine. Leftovers. Early mornings. Sleepy, excited eyes. Champagne for breakfast. Music. Stories. Laughs. Tears, too. Moments to myself. Moments shared. Naps. Noise. A busy kitchen. Late night wrapping. Prawns. Remembering. A big table laden with food and wine, framed by faces, hearts and hands, connected.

It’s a lot.

Then there’s the contexts in which it all plays out. Close to home on a local scale – self, partners, family, work, friends catch ups, commitments, finances, expectations etc. Then there’s the rest of the world – the macro, the fact that it’s all collapsing while being documented and doom scrolled on social media.

It’s a lot.

I tend to default to questions rather than answers at this time, times when I don’t have the answers. When answers are a bit redundant I’m reminded to ask better questions. And I default to rituals which feels like a deeply embedded, innate human pull towards a shared experience.

Questions and answers are a ritual of sorts. They help reframe something that doesn’t seem to make much sense. A good question is expansive, its an invitation to look up, look out, to explore a new horizon you didn’t know existed.

I think Christmas is a particularly good time to ask, ‘What would you like to do with the opportunity of having the people you love gathered in the same place at the same time? Same as last year and the one before? Something else? What might that be?’

Over the years, as an adult without kids of my own, Christmas has gone through many iterations of meaning. At times it has felt lonely without the attention on the joy that kids bring to Christmas, the joy that Christmas brings to kids. Waking up in an empty house at a time such as Christmas is a unique type of loneliness.

The circumstances of a childless adult might be an excuse to feel lonely but they’re not a reason. Meaning doesn’t make itself, we can curate and cultivate the kind of experience we yearn for.

It’s what rituals have become for me – a means of intentionally cultivating an experience. It’s important to note, this it not about forcing something, or denying anything. It’s a means of honouring, a means of acknowledging. It’s an invitation to explore what is, and where appropriate, to guide that experience towards something more. More kind, more generous, more expansive, more human perhaps.

I don’t want to bypass the uncomfortable feelings, the loneliness, for it is a special kind of medicine. When what we’re desiring is not found outside ourselves, it’s an invitation to look within.

What if we acknowledged our losses, our loneliness, our sadness and grief this year? Sounds like fun! I reckon it can be a both/and experience. Let’s acknowledge it all. In my experience, to acknowledge the hard things expands my capacity to appreciate the ‘good’ things. More importantly, it’s honouring our humanity and our shared experience, all of it.

So many don’t have the privilege of celebrating Christmas with loved ones but instead will be joined by an unspoken, unannounced and united guest – grief.

We’ve all experienced loss. We’ve lost people we love, we’ve lost connections, we’ve been forced to go – of certainty, of plans, of relationships, of expectations, of hopes and our attachments to all the above.

That’s hard. And when we gather, these unspoken losses and the accompanying grief gathers too.

Perhaps this year, at this time, rather than mask it with desperate denial that only highlights the contrast, perhaps we set a seat at the table for our grief.

At least acknowledge it, speak its name, light a candle, let it burn and unburden ourselves from needing to bury it under tinsel, too much turkey and another drink.

As we acknowledge our grief, may we connect even deeper to self and each other, with compassion. May the burden of anger, the frustration, the exhaustion, the hopelessness, the sadness, the uncertainty, the disappointment and the tears be welcome too.

Rain a glass to it all.

And if that’a a bit much at an already stressful time, maybe cut some slack and just be gentle and kind with each other, and yourself.