It's better to receive, sometimes.

In the spirit of the Season that passed [per usual] more quickly than it should have, I thought I'd have a little chit chat about gift giving. Also because I received the greatest gift of my life last week.

Let's start here: I love giving gifts. Love. Giving. Gifts. And I generally feel like the receiver of my gifts typically appreciates them. [At the very least they're exceptional actors]. There's an art behind a great gift. Or maybe it's a science. Science hates me, so we'll go with art. Yes, an art. Here are some guidelines I have devised through the years [or in the last five minutes when I decided to to write this post.] We'll call it The Art of Gift Giving:

Make it personal. This is the hardest one. Because it usually means time. And actually knowing someone. Therefore, the greatest gifts are usually given by those who have slowly burrowed deeply into our bulletproof shells.

Make it unexpected. Gifts that blindside you with their out-of-left-field-ness are the best - when they fill a need you didn't know you had. I like to call it the IKEA Effect. Every time I go into IKEA and peruse and wind my way to the Marketplace area I will invariable chance upon some object that I did not know I needed. For instance, heart-shaped ice cube trays for $.99. Or a bathroom rug made out of recycled towels. Some may argue the practicality or necessity of such items. But at that moment I did need them - IKEA created a heart-shaped ice cube tray hole in my heart. It's the same way with an unexpected gift - it's something you couldn't possibly live without after you came to knowledge of its existence.

Just make it. If it's better to give than to receive, then it also follows that it's better to make than to purchase. Granted, you can't make every gift. Only the truly special ones. Concocting something out of thin air is at our human core - and thus, both the giver and receiver garner something out of the interaction. And those are the best kinds of interactions.

As for the greatest gift I've ever received - it was a month in the making by the girl whom I love. And it dominates each step in The Art of Gift Giving to a stupid degree. Not that she had that in mind when she made it - she was just being her usual flawless self.

She first purchased an ancient [ca. the year eighteen hundred fifty-six] arithmitic book for $5 from one of Austin's most peculiar perveyor of goods. She then resolved to scrawl over the pages of the [cumbursome title alert!] Key to Davies' Bourdon with Many Additional Examples, Illustrating the Algebraic Analyses with her own print, putting our story in ink, page by page. With song lyrics. And photos. And stirring words.

It brought me to the edge of tears. And continues to every time I thumb through the 100 pages she penned. The beautiful part is that there are yet hundreds of pages to be written. Hundreds.