The season of Christmas swoops in, ahead of me and my best intentions. I’ll never be a person who has all the family and friends crossed off the list, gifts sweetly wrapped, silky ribbons, satiny bows. Lured by magazines’ designer fine table settings and sparkling trees, loaded with heirloom ornaments. Oh, well.
I sat down, stared out my window at sunlight glittering across a barn’s metal roof. I scribbled and scribbled. I scribbled some more. What does it mean? Especially giving. The art of giving.
Over the years, I have sometimes goofed with a gift. I read once that the three things that cause people the most anxiety are money, sex, and gifts. In that order.
A perfect example—a Christmas gift I gave my husband—the product of my anxious procrastination and cluelessness. We had moved from the city to a canyon in the Santa Monica mountains, a overgrown chaparral and wild canyon within the larger environs of L.A.
I waited until the last minute to buy my husband a gift. It was Christmas Eve, late afternoon, and raining. I raced down to the coast and up the Pacific Coast Highway in search of a hardware store where I grabbed, of all things, a red metal toolbox filled with tools. What was I thinking? Even now I cringe. He was a filmmaker, an artist, an intellectual and the last thing he wanted was a toolbox. Maybe my therapist, back then, would have said, it was what I wanted my husband to want. Or what I wanted my husband to do: fix things.
I began to think about gifts and the art of giving. I jumped on the internet and typed “the art of giving.”
Julia, on Arts & Tea, Substack pops up. Gift giving advice, a tutorial, I surely could use:
.Julia writes: “I’ve always put an unreasonable amount of thought into gifting. I’ll admit it. I can spend weeks circling an idea, adjusting it, refining it not because the gift needs to be perfect, but because it feels like a small act of attention. A way of saying: I’ve been thinking of you more than you know.
But if I’m honest, there’s another layer to it. I give the way I hope to be seen. I choose carefully because, in some quiet way, I’m always looking for someone to notice the intention, the detail, the care. It’s my love language—not the gift itself, but the recognition behind it.
Maybe that’s why simple gifts move me the most. Not grand gestures, but something chosen with the same level of attentiveness. Something that says, I see you too.
Writers have long woven giving into the fabric of their stories. In Jane Austen, a ribbon or a letter becomes a declaration of attention. In Rilke, a gift is a sign of inner richness rather than wealth “a tenderness offered freely.” In Dickens, even a modest meal is enough to soften a hardened heart.
The desire to offer something of ourselves, to make another person feel seen. Giving repeats the truth. It says, I’ve paused my world for a moment to think of yours.”
(excerpt Arts & Tea: The Art of Giving)
I sit here at my desk, the winter light fading golden behind gray hills. And I am reminded of an extraordinary gift. Right here in front of me.
The gift of our editors and staff, volunteers. Every single one. You are the gift!
Since 2003 Streetlight editors, brilliant writers themselves, have dedicated innumerable hours reading, curating, publishing writers and artists. They give precious time and talent to others, What a gift! The gift that continues, not only during the holidays but all year long, given and given freely, year after year! To create a space where artists can be seen.
Thank you to poetry editors, Sharon Ackerman and Fred Wilbur, to Essay/Memoir Editor, Susan Shafarzek, to Fiction Editor, Erika Raskin, to Art Editor, Elizabeth Meade Howard, to Managing Editor, Emily Littlewood, to Associate Editor, Deborah Kelly, to Street Talk Editor, Paula Boyland, Content Manager, Megan Den Bleyker, and Podcast Actor, Jennifer Sims.
To each of you, Thank you. Thank you!
Happy Holidays and Cheers for a New Year!
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