The Best Christmas Gifts Aren’t Things

I’ve been thinking a lot about Christmas, not in the way that usually shows up this time of year, but in the way it settles when you look back far enough to see patterns instead of moments.

When I was a child, Christmas was often about getting what we needed. Clothes that filled real gaps. Shoes that replaced worn ones. There were also years when my parents went big, and later I would hear the stories about how they went into debt to make sure we had plenty under the tree. There was gratitude, genuine gratitude, but there was also a weight to it that I didn’t have words for at the time.

As I got older, I pushed back on the whole idea of Christmas as it’s sold to us. I’ve rejected it outright. I’ve celebrated it in different months just to prove a point. I’ve opted out, and I’ve also gone all in and done the over-the-top version. I’ve lived on both ends of the spectrum long enough to know that neither extreme is the answer.

What stands out now isn’t how much was spent or how full the room looked. What stands out are the experiences. The moments where we were doing something together and time felt different because of it.

Some of my favorite memories with my own family weren’t about opening gifts at all. They were about creating an experience that pulled everyone in. We would turn the day into a puzzle, a treasure hunt where they had to guess what we were doing or where we were going. Clues led to more clues, anticipation built, and the excitement lived in the process, not the reveal.

Even when we did gifts, they weren’t about accumulation. We’d go to a favorite store and set a timer. Five minutes to gather anything you want. Start now. Watching the confusion turn into laughter as the countdown began was part of the fun. Four minutes and twenty seconds left. Decisions had to be made. Priorities showed up. It became a game, an adventure, and a shared memory instead of a transaction.

Those moments stayed.

What I’ve come to understand is that the gifts that last are rarely the ones you can point to years later. They’re the ones that turn into stories. They’re the moments that resurface in conversation, the memories that get retold long after no one remembers what was actually wrapped.

Families are not longing for more stuff. They’re longing for connection, for shared experiences, for moments that say, we were here together and this mattered. That’s what made those holidays meaningful, not the debt, not the excess, but the creativity, the presence, and the intention behind it all.

When I think about the best gifts now, they aren’t things at all. They’re the memories that shaped us, the laughter that carried forward, and the experiences that still live with us long after the wrapping paper disappeared.