“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
Sir Winston Churchill, (1874-1965)
I hope everybody has had all the good food one can handle. Here’s also hoping the leftovers are just as good in your house as they are in mine. My mom still cooks the majority of our holiday meals. Those leftovers are wonderful.
We always have leftovers because Mom cooks for two armies – the one we know is coming and the one that might. Lucky for her, she has two refrigerators and a deep freezer. But we don’t usually have that many leftovers, being from the South and all.
I say from the South because I don’t know how they do it in the rest of the country. But down here, everybody goes home with a plate – either for yourself or somebody you know that couldn’t make it. Many times it’s both.
The end of Thanksgiving traditionally marks the beginning of Christmas. A season of gratitude followed by a season of generosity – what a wonderful tandem. I hadn’t thought of it until recently, but what better symbol of this time of year than the giving of leftovers.
The Christmas season can be chocked full of anxiety – business, personal, physical, financial, emotional – everything seems to be happening faster with a great urgency and significance.
Today I want to encourage you to remember that generosity provides the best stress reliever if we remember its true characteristics. It expects nothing, it can cost nothing, it can be just a little something, it can be a huge thing, and it is always born in your heart.