This holiday season, don’t just exchange gifts, exchange stories

As a teenager growing up in Phoenix, Arizona, I was always very fond of the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The holidays had arrived, the tree was up, lights twinkled on houses, the scorching summer heat but a memory.

Classes had slipped into a steady rhythm and all of us students eagerly awaited the two-week winter break.

It was a time filled with excitement and anticipation, love, merriment and joy.

And apprehension.

As the holidays started it was very easy for me to think of a gift for my mother. She was joyful, interested in so many things, easily delighted, and most likely had given me numerous clues.

I remember one year she kept going on and on about how nice it would be to have a bud vase; she had numerous vases for bouquets of flowers, but nothing for a single rose bud snipped from one of the dozen rose bushes in our back yard.

My father was a different story. He was a kind, loving father, and we had as good of a relationship a man and a teenage boy could have, but in contrast to Mom’s light and airy exuberance, Dad could be a bit reserved, internal and difficult to read.

Each year I would find myself trying to think of a tool, or maybe some new oil paints he would appreciate. I desperately tried to avoid buying him a tie just to check him off my short list. It was very challenging to find a meaningful gift for him.

The best gift I ever shared with my father came a few years later, when I was attending college not far from his office. One semester, I had an extra-long break between classes right around noon, so once or twice each week I would meet him at his office, speak to some of his coworkers, watch him almost absent-mindedly check their potted plants for water, and then we would eat lunch together.

We usually ate at a small café on the first floor of his office building, and we’d just chat about anything and everything. Sometimes, he’d loudly ask me embarrassing questions that would leave me cringing in my chair. I was certain all the ears around us were waiting for my answers, but, for the most part, we just ate and talked.

It was a glorious semester – a time I dearly wish I could revisit now. He passed away suddenly two years later, and I realize now what a gift it was to simply spend time together, enjoying each other’s company and hearing stories from his youth.

This past year I received another tremendous gift. I’ve been writing quite a bit for the past four or five years, but this opportunity to share my stories as a reader columnist for The News Tribune has had a wonderful impact on my life.

What’s made it so memorable, though, is not that I got to tell my stories. (I enjoy that, for sure, and I’m betting quite a few people would testify that I share my stories often, perhaps too often.) The best part is that when I share my stories, I almost always get to hear somebody else’s in return.

A bond is formed, a relationship grows. There is joy discovering how much we have in common. I’m reminded of the words of author Frederick Buechner: “My assumption is that the story of any one of us is, in some measure, the story of us all.”

The greatest gift we can give someone is something they already possess: their voice. We only need give them an opportunity to share it. Thanks for letting me share my voice with you.

Andrew Homan of University Place is a network administrator at the YMCA of Pierce and Kitsap Counties. He’s one of five reader columnists who write for this page. Reach him at NoelNHoman@gmail.com and read some of his other work at www.andrewhoman.com

This story was originally published December 6, 2019 at 1:30 PM.