As Christmas quickly approaches it is clear to see by taking a drive past a mall or any store that people are desperately out shopping for those last-minute gifts. To be honest, one has to wonder where all this commercialism came from.

Why the need to spend so much to shower people with gifts that will likely be forgotten or sit collecting dust in the months and years to come?

People spend and spend until they have nothing left, and worse than that they often buy things on credit and then spend the next year paying it off.

I think this is especially true of those who have young children. What is the message that we are sending them? Many tell their kids that some guy in a red suit named “Santa” brought them. If so, why do those parents have that six-page Visa statement sitting in their drawer that screams otherwise?

If we were to take a step back, for just a moment, and remember what Christmas is about, we would realize that this is not what was intended at Christmas time.

This is an amazing time of year to remember those you cherish most, your family. What they want from you is your time, not your money or your gifts. Whether they are here, and you can spend time with them, or they have passed on and you can enjoy the happy memories of them.

If you are a believer, this may be the time when you celebrate the time of Christ being born. Jesus was born in the simplest of places, a manger. A place where animals eat and sleep. God did not send his Son to sit on the highest of thrones on earth. Instead, he came to us small, humble, meek.

Wise men travelled for a very long time to find Jesus and to bring him one gift. The story as we know it today talks of three wise men, each of them bearing one gift for the precious child known as Jesus.

Jesus himself was the one gift that was given for everyone, by God the Father.

Jesus was one gift, and he was more than enough.

I hope you are reminded during this Christmas season, no matter what you celebrate, there is a perfect gift in the simplicity of the season, and in the hope and joy of the season.

We were never meant to rush around stressing about how many gifts we can buy for people and how much money we are spending. Instead, we were meant to enjoy time spent with our loved ones, the family and friends we cherish.

Let the one gift of your presence, not presents, and your time spent with those you love, be enough.

Merry Christmas from all of us at Cariboo Home and Health Services