GIfts??

Hey there Everybody...I've been wanted to write this blog for about a week now, but I haven't had a chance, and since my companion is having to burn the midnight oil to get all his stuff for Transfers(Chaos in a Can, but that'll be another blog) ready. I figured I'd use a bit of the down to time to share something that'd occured to me on over the Break.
It all goes around Gifts. It all started when my companion Elder Hartvigsen, and I were trying to figure out a spiritual thought we could share with the Members we would be visiting over the Christmas Holidays, and what we could do me that simply reading Luke 2, and then closing with our Testimonies. Since at this point of the day we're generally pretty brain fried, we got off topic, and just started talking about Christmas, at home and things we used to do with our Families. We liked comparing Christmas Eve here, and at home. I talked about how my Family and I would cram into the Suburban, Van, or whatever form of Public Transportation we used to cart a Soccer Teams worth of Siblings around the Snowy Back Roads of Blackfoot, Paisley, or whatever small bend in the road we were inhabiting at the time. We would go to all the our Friends, who'd we'd grown close to it in the past year, and sing a couple of off tune Christmas Carols, and then try and apologize by giving them some of Mom's homemade Christmas goodies.
Elder Hartvigsen then told me about what he and his family did. Every year they would pull take a little Treasure Chest, and writing on a slip of paper would write down what they would give the Saviour for his birthday that year. It would be something like reading the Scriptures everyday, having Family Pray, or any amount of wonderful things that Christ would have us give to him.
At this point we came back on topic without even trying, as we then realized what we could do for the Members. We prepared how we would teach the lesson, and had some good success as we even gave it.
As it is with all good things from the Lord, they always seem to go a little bit deeper, and hold a little bit longer than we ever thought they could. I began wondering what is the purpose of Presents at Christmas. I'd always been told that they're symbolic of the Gifts brought to the Christ King, in honor of his coming.
It seems that the Gift giving part of Christmas always seems to get underplayed. I've seen enough Christmas specials where the recieving of Gifts, has been portrayed in not the most positive light. As I was thinking though, I've come to the conclusion, that Christmas cannot be Christmas without Presents. We must always protect ourselves, from greed, selfishness, and such negative effects of Satan, but if the Spirit of Christ is part of any Christmas celebration, the Gifts symbolic of Loving Sacrifice can be a really holy experience. God himself gave his only begotten Son on this day, such that he could build the needed bridge to cover the chasms separating us from him.
I don't know if you followed this at all, but in the short run of things....Gifts, are as just as important to the Christianity of Christmas, as are the Carols, Scriptures, and any and all things that can remind us of the Eternal Perspective. Sometime we just have to look a little deeper.