As we navigate through the coming months, you’re going to see and hear me use different words to refer to this time of the year. Already you’ve seen references to “holiday event” and “Holiday Shoppe.” Yet, those who know me know I’m a Christ-follower (it’s pretty much everywhere on my social media profiles) and are probably wondering why in the world I’m not referring to everything red and green as “Christmas this” and “Christmas that.”
Christmas is a holiday, a holy day. It’s a day when we celebrate the birth of Jesus with family and friends. This is a beautiful thing. We observe our traditions, like attending a flotilla each year and watching Christmas specials together. We bake Christmas cookies, and we spend time with family and friends. The girls help me make the traditional family coconut cake for Christmas dinner with my family, and we attend a Christmas Eve Lovefeast service each year before driving around and looking at lights.
Holiday refers to this time of year marked by commercialism, secular trappings, sales, promotions, and Christmas-theme products. This doesn’t really have a whole lot to do with the true meaning of Christmas. Now, I know I’m a business owner, and I make and sell Christmas-themed products. I love these products because they’re fun products to make and sell.
But you want to know something? While I like making money from my business (otherwise, what’d be the point, ya know?), that’s not what drives me this time of year. My absolute favorite part of selling during the holiday season is sending smiles. It goes like this. I pull orders off my site’s admin section, then I start pulling products, usually with the help of someone in my family. We spread all these orders out on the table, I print off the packing slips, and we start packing these to ship.
My favorite thing is when I see the shipping address and billing address are different. That usually means someone is getting a gift. So I wrap their products in tissue, tie them with a bow, and attach a gift tag (this is just something we do). The person on the receiving end of the package gets a surprise, and who doesn’t love knowing that someone else is thinking of them? Or, if the buyer has me ship the package to them, then there’s the chance that they’re going to be wrapping those lovely goodies themselves to tuck under the tree or into stockings. Or, perhaps a soap and a lotion will grace a powder or guest room, all ready for visiting family and friends to enjoy.
Do you see where I’m going with this? It’s all about the giving. I might be the middle man in this lovely gift-fest, but I have the privilege every year of helping send smiles. And love. And fabulous soaps. And that’s just really several layers of awesome.
