The Season of Giving

Every year I give myself a limit on how much I will spend at Christmas. Every year I go over it. I do really enjoy buying Christmas presents for people. I love surprising my loved ones and exceeding their expectations. That’s not always showering them with lavish gifts. This year I think one of the most meaningful gifts and the one that will mean the most to someone cost me £5.

The Christmas break, for me, is usually perfectly predictable. I eat as much of the most amazing food that my stomach possibly allows me to. I meet up with my friends for our annual get together, every year a new baby joins us as our family gets bigger. I spend time lazing around with my mum, having a few drinks, watching Christmas movies and just genuinely having a really good time while our hearts feel heavy with love. Then I will spend time with my boyfriend and his family and continue to love and feel loved.

It really is a time of year that gives us time to stop and really appreciate our loved ones. Think about how fortunate we are to be surrounded by people we love and, in that moment, not really want for anything else. We have food on our tables and a roof over our heads as we look into the eyes of those that mean the most to us. It’s a wonderful time of the year, for some.

The only thing that I will be doing different in this year’s Christmas break is volunteering for Crisis at Christmas. For two days I will be a general volunteer, working with other volunteers at numerous locations around London. Last Saturday, I had my induction for ‘new volunteers’. It was fantastic. I was the first to arrive and wasn’t sure about the turnout as a few minutes had gone by with only a couple of other people trickling in. But I needn’t have worried as before I knew it the place was packed; every corner of the room was full with people scanning the room for a place to squeeze in to. Fathers came with their sons, sisters with their brothers, friendly faces came on their own. Husbands came with their wives, young girls and boys came alone: young old, white, black and brown, the venue was filled to the brim with volunteers from every type of background and nationality you could imagine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UU86jBKhA3hGiyAb6Vg63rTw&v=KmJQMtzmLVQ

As the induction came to an end and some truly inspiring and heartfelt stories were told to us from volunteers that had been helping out for more than seventeen years, the thought of Christmas had a more important meaning to me. It has always been about being thankful and enjoying the gift of giving, but when these volunteers told their stories of how a miniscule acts could make all the difference it really hit home.

The act of simply holding a door open with a smile for someone who is used to being literally walked over on the street unnoticed, asking someone if they want a cup of tea, or just sitting down and having a chat. To quote one of the speakers at the induction, ‘’these people are just like us, they have just had worse luck, that’s all.’’ Christmas became about a community and humanity and appreciating what you have while doing anything you can to make sure someone else has the opportunity to feel as loved as you.