I've just spent half an hour sobbing into my Cornflakes but it's literally been the most meaningful 'Christmas moment' I've had so far this year.
If you haven't watched The Other Christmas Gift video yet, I urge you to drop everything and do so right now. Heck, if you've watched it already, drop everything and watch it all over again. It's even better the second time around. Just make sure you arm yourself with a box of man-size tissues before you press 'play'.
I'm not going to spoil it for you but this short film is set up with this premise:
"With so many people focused on getting instead of giving, UP TV set out to ask these kids the toughest question they'd face this Christmas season."
You might think you can guess what happens next, or maybe it'll surprise you. Whatever, you'd have to have a heart of pure stone not to find it touching.
I love this little film because it shows how readily kids 'get' the old-fashioned idea that it's better to give than to receive. Which is a little surprising given how commercialised Christmas is these days, and how much pressure many parents feel under to buy this year's must-have toys or stretch to buy stuff that our kids don't truly need.
I find Christmas tricksy for a number of reasons. On the one hand it's my favourite time of the year. I love the lights, having the perfect excuse to listen to Michael Bublé on a loop for a whole month, and all the excitement and anticipation that gets even more magical and wondrous when you have kids. But I find the financial pressure gets to me at times, as does the hard-to-avoid feeling that I must create the perfect Christmas day, no matter what the personal cost to my sanity or stress-levels.
But watching this helped restore my perspective this Christmas, and remind me that kids are often the quickest to grasp what Christmas should really be about. So far from being driven to distraction by the need to give my kids the perfect Christmas Day, I am now determined to snuggle up beside them and just enjoy the simple things that make Christmas with your family special.
We'd love to hear how you reacted to this film. Come and tell us over on our Facebook page. Do you think your kids would have made the same choice?
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