We’ve all been there, Christmas morning and the gifts are all out and piled up in front of the tree. Father Christmas has been and the weeks and months of shopping, hours and hours of wrapping are finally complete. As your adoring children come bouncing into the room on the most important moment of the year your expectations of seeing their faces is at its absolute peak.
What you see before you in a blur of time is the mountains of wrapping paper strewn across the floor, it’s a sea of colour. What do you notice? Children smiling at their gifts? Beaming grins and the faces of disbelief of what you have brought? No, quite simply you see children who are ready to make a robot from a box, ribbons are being detached and saved for later and actually where have your little ones vanished to?
In our house the boxes, ribbons, gift bags and empty packages have brought more delight than any £50 gift. Children love to recreate and use their imaginations in their own little worlds. Often on the most magical morning of the year my children are found in their bedrooms, in a corner remaking something for a much loved doll or robot. The toy that was in the box and wrapping has been cast aside. Children love imagination and play.
Children love time spent with them and the parts of the gift that allow them to create and be a million miles away in their own wonderful world. The simplest of things are the things in life that often cost the least. We can all learn from our children. Cherish the wrapping and the box instead of focusing on the material that are all around us.