Meaningful Gifts for Christmas

Fall has always been a season that seems to pass in a blink of an eye. One minute I am picking tomatoes from my garden and the next the snow is flying. This year is no exception. Halloween just passed in a blur and we all know that Christmas will be here before half of us have even figured out what we are going to get our families and friends. Let the mad scramble begin.

This Christmas is a special one for me. Mostly because my mom is coming out from Alberta to spend it with my husband and I. As some of you may know, this was a pretty tough year for my mom. Triple by pass surgery and then shortly thereafter another surgery to remove an extremely large mass. The fact that she is getting stronger with each passing day and that this year, I will get to spend Christmas with her makes me extra thankful. 

For about seven years while I was growing up, my mom took in exchange students. One year it was Wakako Futakuchi from Japan and the next it was Claudia de Carvalho Pinto from Brazil. I never asked my mom why she did it, I just adjusted to a new presence in the home. I just accepted a new culture in my life. Over the years, I learnt a lot from these additions to our family and each year I waited anxiously to meet the new student who would spend a year with us. But not only did my mom accept exchange students into our home, we also always had a foster child. Letters and photos would arrive from Lasa thanking us for our families generosity and telling us about how he was progressing in school. I got to glimpse into the life of someone much less fortunate financially than I.

Perhaps that is why when I was asked to take a look at Gifts that Matter, it struck a chord. I was particularly drawn to the Mothers Matter page - for obvious reasons based on this year's events. Not only because of what my mom has gone through this year, but also because of everyone's generosity with our kickstarter campaign. We are building a rental kitchen here in Toronto, so how wonderful would it be to help fund a stove for a family in Ethiopia and have that be the kind of gift I give this season?