Giving Joyfully

It’s that time of year. The time for gift giving and showing kindness to strangers. The time for decorating the house to within an inch of its life and spending more than you dreamed you would. But Christmas is my favorite holiday. I am a warm weather person, but I tolerate the cold for a few weeks around Christmas. As soon as it is over, I want my warm weather back.

One of the big focuses I see today’s society is decluttering. You can now rent a storage space to put your junk somewhere else. There are signs on side streets with “Got Junk? Call xxx-xxxx” on them. Every magazine you read has a “get organized,” “declutter,” or “simplify your life” article emblazoned on the front.

Most recently was the big success of the bestseller called “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo. 

Being a person who owns more than entirely necessary, I decided to give the book a read. It was enjoyable and interesting with many great tips on decluttering and organizing what is left, even down to how to fold your socks and clothes. One excellent tip Kondo gives in what she calls her Konmari Method is to pick up an item and if it “sparks joy,” keep it. If it doesn’t, then give it away. By following this rule, everything you own should bring joy to you when you touch it, use it, or wear it.

I would like to propose an addendum to this rule. I am a known office-supply junkie. I could literally stand in an office supply store for hours and drool at the contents. I dream of school supply sales in August. One gift I bought myself several years ago was a small art kit.

It was a wooden box, and inside it had about 8 or 10 pencils of differing hardness, about 10 or 12 colored pencils, a small sharpener, a small sketch pad, a dummy with moving parts you could put on a metal stick and pose whichever way you wanted to draw it, and a booklet telling about art. I enjoy art but am not Picasso. After I bought this kit for myself, I enjoyed taking it off the shelf now and again, doing some drawing, then putting it all neatly away. It gave me joy just to take it down and open it and see those beautiful supplies all laid out and ready to go. Even if I didn’t use it, I loved it.

Recently I noticed a young lady in our church. She would come every week and sit quietly with her grandparents and draw. She was pretty good from what I could see, drawing anime and such. I thought it was great she seemed to have such passion for her skill.

One day, I moved my kit off the shelf and the girl popped into my mind. I thought, I bet she would use this kind of kit every day, not just once every six months or so when the notion hit her. After a few days of deliberating, I decided to wrap it up and give it to her. She is not someone we normally exchange gifts with. I do not expect payment (nor even a thank you card, which seems to be a thing of the past for most). But I do hope she will enjoy it and use it and get as much joy from it as I got.

Giving the kit to her brought me joy as well. Yes, having it and looking at it did spark joy for me. But the spark I received from giving the kit away was even bigger. So, while everything you own should spark joy, you should not limit yourself in giving away only spark-less items. When you give joy, you get joy. Try it and see for yourself. 

And have a very Merry, Joy-filled, Sparky Christmas.