Not everyone has the means to give gifts during the holidays. But that doesn’t mean that what they do give isn’t meaningful.
Rachel Uretsky-Pratt, a teacher in Kennewick, Washington, was recently blown away by the generous gesture of one of her students. The little girl had nothing to give her teacher. So, her solution was a package with special meaning — all the marshmallows out of her marshmallow cereal.
Uretsky-Pratt knew the meaning behind the small gift.
Her students come from low-income families and often don’t have money to buy Christmas gifts. What is more, they receive free school meals, including breakfast.
“With it being the day before break and Christmas right around the corner, most teachers bring their kiddos something such as books or little treats and occasionally in return receive something from their students,” Uretsky-Pratt wrote on Facebook.
She said that she received a variety of gifts from her students that day, including letters, jewelry, and Christmas treats.
But it was the marshmallows that she’ll remember more than anything.
“This kiddo wanted to get me something so badly, but had nothing to give,” she wrote. “So rather than give me nothing, this student opened up her free breakfast cereal this morning, took the packaging of her spork, straw, and napkin, and finally took the time to take every marshmallow out of her cereal to put in a bag — for me. Be grateful for what you have, and what others give you. It all truly comes from the deepest parts of their hearts.”
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Sometimes, Christmas gifts are all about the meaning behind them.
A young woman in Shingle Springs, CA., went the extra mile for her mother this year when she put together a message of hope for her.
Katelyn Harper heard her mother say how depressed she was by the tragedies she saw in the news. She felt oppressed by the negative coverage and the ugliness she saw everywhere. So, Harper, along with her husband, took the time to find the happiest and most positive news stories of the year and combine them into a collage.
The result? A huge, beautiful flower to remind her mother of all the good in the world.
“For the most part, there’s kind of random bits and pieces, but they’re all positive news stories,” said Harper.
She chose each story one-by-one, printed it, cut it out, and painted it by hand. Her mother, Teresa Crowley, absolutely loved the gift.
“They know how I hate the negativity all over Facebook and the news, so Katelyn thought of this gift as a reminder that there is so much positivity in the world,” Crowley wrote on Facebook. “Katelyn chose to make a paper mosaic of a sunflower because of the sunflower’s ability to always face the sun, serving as the perfect metaphor for focusing on positivity. Graham researched positive, happy, and uplifting news stories and printed them out on paper for Katelyn to then paint, tear apart, and piece together as a sunflower collage.”
Crowley has been deeply disturbed by many of the stories in the media lately.
Particularly, the stories of people displaced by the California wildfires have caused her a lot of distress. But she’s used that distress to become part of the effort to help others.
As for Harper, she wanted to go a step further and make sure the stories she used in her mother’s artwork wouldn’t be lost. So, she embedded a QR code that navigates to a Google doc, full of links to the positive stories she used.
Crowley said it’s the best gift anyone has ever given her, just because of the meaning behind it. She said she was deeply touched at the thought that her daughter did so much work and thought of her the entire time.
Lately, the news has upset Crowley so much, she’s stopped listening. She said the distressing stories occupied her thoughts so much, she spent a lot of time feeling sad and depressed.
But her daughter’s beautiful Christmas gift is the perfect reminder that there are a lot of good things happening, too.
“It’s one of those pieces you can hand down generation to generation to remind you to look at the bright side of things,” said Crowley. “There’s a lot of good going on in the world. A lot of the times it’s not prevalent. There’s more good in the world than evil.”
One thing is for sure: when it comes to Christmas gifts, money is not the most important thing.
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