Christmas arrived again, quietly.

Department stores started looping the same old jingle bells, and somehow, my bones didn’t feel like moving at all.

In previous years, around this time, I’d obediently open my notes app and make a long list of people I should give gifts to: family, friends, colleagues, and those awkward in-between people, not close, not distant, but strange not to give anything to. Then I’d calculate budgets, pick items, wrap gifts, label boxes, like a one-person Christmas logistics center.

But this year, I felt no motivation at all. Not because I love them less, but because I spent an entire year finally learning how to take proper care of myself, and stumbled upon a truth that’s both cruel and funny: A gift is essentially an intention.

And intention can’t be measured in money.

A card I actually took time to write might weigh more than something bought with a casual swipe. An evening where I truly sit with you, might be more honest than a bottle of perfume ordered in seconds.

I know, this kind of sentence sounds very agreeable in spiritual books. Everyone nods. But once it turns into real-life execution “There were gifts last year, but not this year”— people instantly become much less spiritual.

In the eyes of those who are used to receiving gifts from me, I haven’t done anything wrong. Yet somehow, I've become someone who gave a little less, someone who maybe doesn’t care as much anymore.

This is the classic dilemma: being a “good person” is hard, especially when we’ve been assigned a recurring gift KPI. The moment we stop, the world feels like we owe it something.

This year, what I really want to do is redefine what “giving a gift” means. Not giving nothing, but shifting from quantity + price to sincerity + presence.

Maybe I’ll buy fewer things and write more honest words. Maybe it’ll be a handwritten card, a long, messy text only the two of us understand, or a walk where we actually talk without scrolling our phones.

I know some people won’t be used to it. Some might quietly calculate: “Why does it feel smaller this year?” That’s okay.

Someone has to stop first to switch off gift factory mode and return to the core question: what are we actually exchanging with each other?

My biggest wish this Christmas is that the people around me slowly understand this: A gift isn’t something I owe you. It’s a piece of myself that I’m willing to share. And if one day, receiving a small card from me
makes you happier than receiving a big package that’s the Christmas I want to have.



—— XC Scribbles · 肆拾壹 XLI 🎄