If you’re not familiar with it, you might suspect that there’s fist-a-cuffs over gift exchanges! But Boxing Day is a tradition of giving gifts to people who are less fortunate.

We don’t want to leave the impression that we think us Yanks are Scrooges. A lot of people here are very generous throughout the holiday season. But we think Boxing Day is an interesting tradition, truly in tune with the spirit of this time of the year.

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The son who learned to give

We found a great story about a mom who taught her son about the value of giving. We’ll hit the highlights here. It’s written from the son’s point-of-view.

The first Christmas that he remembers, he was thoroughly excited about all of his gifts. His mom soon squashed his enthusiasm; she told him he had to choose one present to give away to a little kid who wasn’t as lucky as he was. It was a hard decision, but he finally chose a present to give away.

Another Christmas, he really had trouble deciding between his gifts before finally settling on his new checker set. His mom left the room, only to return a short time later with a piece of cardboard, crayons, and his bottle cap collection. They proceeded to make a checker set by hand.

The author remembers one year, when his mom had been laid off, that he didn’t get many gifts. She told him that he didn’t have to give any presents away that year. But he decided he still wanted to observe the tradition. That year, he gave away his new football. Six months later, he asked his mom what she wanted for her birthday. Being a wonderful mom, she requested a football!

The son continued this tradition of giving away one of his presents every year, even as an adult. He ended up passing it on to his own son.

A reserve to give

This boy’s mom made it clear to him that they gave something every year to what she called “poor people.” He says that, years later, he realized they were poor themselves. Isn’t it interesting – to some extent, poor is a state of mind. If we have enough in reserve that we can afford to give something away, we must not be poor.

Give away the good stuff

Picture yourself as a kid. Do you remember being excited by just about every single gift? What if your mom would have told you that you had to give one of them away? That would have been pretty hard, huh?

We often give what we don’t want any longer or we buy something new just for the purpose of giving it away. We don’t have an attachment to it. It seems to us that giving away something you just received would really pack a punch – even for an adult, but especially for a kid. 

The gift of time

Then there’s the checker set. After much debate, he decided to give that away, but his mom gave him a different option. He learned that material possessions are valuable, but the gift of our time is even more valuable. The checker set he gave away was one-of-a-kind and probably worth more than the mass-produced one he kept.

Giving when it hurts

We thought it was touching that, in the bad year when his mom said he didn’t have to give anything away, he still chose to give up his football. It showed how much he had learned from his mom.

She taught him another lesson when she asked for a football for her birthday. Sometimes when you give, it comes back to you, even when it’s unexpected.

Pass it on

He passed on this tradition of passing on gifts to his own son. Of all the Christmas traditions we could pass on to our kids, what could be better than establishing a tradition of giving?

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

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Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00295-122608.mp3

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The Best Present of All, No Matter How It’s Wrapped

(Image in today's post by zerobug)

Today we want to discuss preferences – making the right choices for ourselves – and how our preferences affect our relationship with others and with ourselves.

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I was talking with my dad the other day. He’s really looking forward to Thanksgiving Day because he is going to cook all day. My dad is the make-everything-from-scratch kind of guy. He just can’t wait. For him, it’s going to be super-relaxing and he’s excited about it. I, on the other hand, would hate that. I can’t see how cooking and doing dishes all day is fun and relaxing.

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As we were talking about this, we realized that we assess other people, and what they’re doing, based on our own preferences.

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Obviously, I don’t think what my dad’s doing is wrong. I’m happy for him that he’s excited. It’s just that it’s not what I would want to do.

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I’m closer to your league, Mary-Lynn. If we were doing this whole thing ourselves, there would be a lot of semi-homemade cooking – out of the box with modifications stuff.

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I’m all about the Stove Top stuffing and getting a turkey breast instead of a whole turkey, so you don’t have to carve it. I guess what I’m saying here is that my choice is to be lazy!

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Which works fine on Thanksgiving Day for you. But I think sometimes we look at other people and wonder why in the world they’re doing what they’re doing. Like with what your dad’s doing – it works for him and brings him joy.

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The perfect meal

Then sometimes we make choices for ourselves based on what we think other people expect from us. We put pressure on ourselves to be perfect. Let’s keep the Thanksgiving theme going. We think we have to have the perfect meal – we have to serve the dinner on the china, the stuffing has to be homemade, we have to make the pies from scratch.

It’s what we’ve always done

We put all these pressures on ourselves because we think that’s what our guests expect. Those expectations may be based on tradition – this is what we’ve always done. Just because we’ve “always done” something doesn’t mean we should necessarily feel pressure to keep doing it every single time, or any time for that matter! There should be a good reason for it. 

Guilt

If you are strapped for time, if you are tuckered out, why put yourself through all of this extra work? You could just get a store-bought pie or call someone and ask them to make one or pick one up.

But if we do that, we feel guilty. Because we’re not doing what’s always been done, because our family’s going to expect that everything is going to be perfect – we’re going to have the homemade pie, the stuffing is going to be made from scratch, the turkey will be nice and golden, fresh out of the oven, ready to carve.

Who really expects it?

We do all of these things because we feel these expectations even though the people around us may not. We place all of this pressure on ourselves!

We may do this because we want everything to be perfect. That’s fine as long as it’s really your choice and you’re not doing it because you feel guilty if you don’t do it.

Conscious choices

Maybe if you really thought about it, and you talked with your loved ones, you might decide that the best solution is to go out for Thanksgiving dinner. Or have spaghetti with turkey meatballs!

That’s the point – it doesn’t matter what you do if you consciously make the choice. If it works for you and the people you care about, then it works! And this doesn’t just apply to Thanksgiving dinner!

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Today we give thanks to you for joining us here. Next time, we’ll look at close encounters of the rude kind. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00272-112508.mp3

Related posts

Putting The Thanks In Thanksgiving

Putting The Giving In Thanksgiving

(Image by bjearwicke)

Today we want to discuss preferences – making the right choices for ourselves – and how our preferences affect our relationship with others and with ourselves.

___

___

___

I was talking with my dad the other day. He’s really looking forward to Thanksgiving Day because he is going to cook all day. My dad is the make-everything-from-scratch kind of guy. He just can’t wait. For him, it’s going to be super-relaxing and he’s excited about it. I, on the other hand, would hate that. I can’t see how cooking and doing dishes all day is fun and relaxing.

___

___

As we were talking about this, we realized that we assess other people, and what they’re doing, based on our own preferences.

___

___

Obviously, I don’t think what my dad’s doing is wrong. I’m happy for him that he’s excited. It’s just that it’s not what I would want to do.

___

___

I’m closer to your league, Mary-Lynn. If we were doing this whole thing ourselves, there would be a lot of semi-homemade cooking – out of the box with modifications stuff.

___

___

I’m all about the Stove Top stuffing and getting a turkey breast instead of a whole turkey, so you don’t have to carve it. I guess what I’m saying here is that my choice is to be lazy!

___

___

Which works fine on Thanksgiving Day for you. But I think sometimes we look at other people and wonder why in the world they’re doing what they’re doing. Like with what your dad’s doing – it works for him and brings him joy.

___

The perfect meal

Then sometimes we make choices for ourselves based on what we think other people expect from us. We put pressure on ourselves to be perfect. Let’s keep the Thanksgiving theme going. We think we have to have the perfect meal – we have to serve the dinner on the china, the stuffing has to be homemade, we have to make the pies from scratch.

It’s what we’ve always done

We put all these pressures on ourselves because we think that’s what our guests expect. Those expectations may be based on tradition – this is what we’ve always done. Just because we’ve “always done” something doesn’t mean we should necessarily feel pressure to keep doing it every single time, or any time for that matter! There should be a good reason for it. 

Guilt

If you are strapped for time, if you are tuckered out, why put yourself through all of this extra work? You could just get a store-bought pie or call someone and ask them to make one or pick one up.

But if we do that, we feel guilty. Because we’re not doing what’s always been done, because our family’s going to expect that everything is going to be perfect – we’re going to have the homemade pie, the stuffing is going to be made from scratch, the turkey will be nice and golden, fresh out of the oven, ready to carve.

Who really expects it?

We do all of these things because we feel these expectations even though the people around us may not. We place all of this pressure on ourselves!

We may do this because we want everything to be perfect. That’s fine as long as it’s really your choice and you’re not doing it because you feel guilty if you don’t do it.

Conscious choices

Maybe if you really thought about it, and you talked with your loved ones, you might decide that the best solution is to go out for Thanksgiving dinner. Or have spaghetti with turkey meatballs!

That’s the point – it doesn’t matter what you do if you consciously make the choice. If it works for you and the people you care about, then it works! And this doesn’t just apply to Thanksgiving dinner!

___

___

Today we give thanks to you for joining us here. Next time, we’ll look at close encounters of the rude kind. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00272-112508.mp3

Related posts

Putting The Thanks In Thanksgiving

Putting The Giving In Thanksgiving

(Image by bjearwicke)