What is the greatest gift I have ever received?

That is a very hard question for me to come up with an answer to. Yes, I’m sure we all have a number of gifts that we prize far more than the others. Whether it be because of who gave it to us, or the reasoning behind why it was given. But, I think the greatest gift I have ever received was not for a birthday or special occasion; it is not a material thing. I think the greatest gift I had ever received was one given to me from God himself: my family.

Family. I know a number of you might be chuckling right now. Some may dread the holiday season because they have to see the aunt who gives too many kisses or the uncle who hogs the television remote the whole time. I know for others, the least exciting part about the holidays may be seeing family because, let’s face it, families can be crazy.

But for me, despite how crazy or draining it may be to have to see family, I know just how lucky I am to have one. That is why the greatest gift I have ever received is my family.

Amid the Christmas season, I reflect on Thanksgiving, and thank God for the celebration that brought us all together. Growing up, my Thanksgivings were rather lonely. My parents were divorced, and I spent my Thanksgivings with my mother. I love her more than anything, but she always worked on Thanksgiving. She grew up in the Philippines and didn’t really celebrate the holiday when she came here more than 20 years ago. I guess she never realized how important the holiday was to me, but I suppose it was partially my fault for never telling her. While I would see pictures of my friends gathering around a table and a turkey with their family, I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous.

A few years later, my mother married my stepfather. Like her, he didn’t really understand the importance of celebrating Thanksgiving. Maybe it was because I was smack center of my adolescent years, but I couldn’t help but to feel angry. Then it happened, on Thanksgiving of 2011, I fought with my parents about why they didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving with me.

Amazingly, while I threw my tantrum, they didn’t say a single word. They watched me as I complained. They listened as I stomped around the room. They didn’t say anything; they didn’t get angry. They simply waited for me to settle down and to say everything that I wanted to say.

When I finally finished, they did the most surprising thing. They gave me a hug, and then they told me that they were sorry. They explained to me how they didn’t realize that Thanksgiving had been so important to me, and that they never found the point of having a day dedicated to appreciation. They said that they appreciated having me around them every single day and that appreciation wouldn’t disappear when Thanksgiving Day was over.

It was all very sweet, right? But do you want to know what really made my adolescent-self cry? They told me that they worked on Thanksgiving because they got paid double for working on holidays. And they did that so I could buy everything I wanted on Black Friday. I cried really hard that night.

On that day, I realized how important my family was. While I was moping and thinking the worst thoughts, they weren’t doing anything but thinking about me and what would make me happy.

Every year since then, we celebrated Thanksgiving. Then a few years ago, we started to celebrate with my then-boyfriend. And just last year, we celebrated with my then-boyfriend-now-husband and his family. We have grown from a family of two to a family of eleven, and it is probably one of the happiest things to happen in my life. I no longer get jealous of my friends who sit around a table and share a turkey together because now, I sit around a table of my own.

Thanksgiving is a time where we are thankful for everything that we have and celebrate all the blessings that are to come. All the feelings and appreciation that we feel on Thanksgiving, we must remember not to forget on all the other days of the year. We need to appreciate every day, understand every day, celebrate life every day, and love every day. Thanksgiving is the day when we remember to do these things, but that doesn’t mean we should forget about them when the day is over. So even now, in the month of December, I am thankful for the blessing of family Thanksgiving has brought to me.

I am so grateful for my family because without them, I wouldn’t have realized what I’ve been blessed with and understand how thankful I should be. In a world where we are separated by wars, ideals, opinions, and beliefs, we should all remember to love and to be thankful that we are alive. Let us never let disagreements lead to hatred, or our judgments reduce our ability to understand. As Jesus has taught us, we should love one another as we love ourselves. If we love our families, we love ourselves. We, the human race, are one family.

This Christmas, let us try our hardest to remember that. Let us not let the political climate divide us, or our opinion separate us. As we gather around the table, let us only think positive thoughts. Let us remember the teachings of God and be thankful for the blessings he has given us. The holidays should bring us together with our families, not divide us. Let us talk, let us communicate, let us be understanding. We have so much to be thankful for. We are so blessed.

Thank you, God, for my family: Sofia, Carlo, Elizabeth, Rodolfo, Rence, Juanita, Ramoncito, Paulo, Kim, and Jan.

While thinking back through the many thoughtful gifts I’ve received through my childhood, teenage, and young adult years, it is difficult to pinpoint one single gift I received. I appreciate my God-parents who never failed to send me a card in the mail with $20 and a sweet message all the way from Oregon every time I had a birthday or Christmas rolled around again.

I appreciate the gifts my grandmother always sent to me and my sister, especially considering that we are just two of eighteen of her grandchildren. I appreciate the many gifts I received from my parents throughout the years, and those that appeared in the night from St. Nick as well.

The one gift that I remember the most, however, is not one of great value, or one that took the greatest amount of time to come up with, but it’s a gift that brought me back into a time of pure innocence. The precious memories of childhood are some that can never be replaced.

When I was very young, before I began kindergarten, I had a very special toy; it felt like this toy had been my friend during my early years. Nearly every person I know had a cherished toy or item that they played with as a child, and even slept with every night. Some had a blanket, some a teddy bear, or even a special baby bottle that was taken around with them everywhere. Mine, however, was a stuffed dog, whom I had named (at an age no greater than three) "Gundenga." A strange name? Certainly, but what toddler doesn’t have their way with words and an infinite imagination? I spent a lot of time with this stuffed dog, who I’ve been told was originally given to me while in line at a Wells-Fargo bank when I was just two years old. I played with him during the day and I slept with him in my arms through the night, holding him tighter if I was frightened of the unknown noises I could hear in the darkness of my room and across my house.

Soon before I began kindergarten, Gundenga mysteriously disappeared and was nowhere to be found. Five-year-old Morgan searched up and down the house, even in places which had not been touched in quite a while before Gundenga had gone missing. Eventually, I gave up on the search and moved on with my life as a young child, missing my stuffed dog terribly, yet moving forward in the best of ways by making friends with my classmates in elementary school and learning how to navigate the world around me. I never forgot about my old friend who used to keep me company at night, but I stopped looking.

Christmas morning, several years down the road, I woke up, thrilled, to see what gifts were left by my family and Santa Claus. The aroma of cinnamon potpourri and pinecones filled my house as I made my way down the stairs while my younger sister begged for my parents to get out of their bed and meet us by the Christmas tree.

Before anyone even made it to the living room to sit beside me and begin our Christmas morning tradition, my curiosity got the best of me. I didn’t begin unwrapping presents or even shaking the larger ones around, but only began looking at the wrapped boxes and counting how many each of my family members received. As I was looking around the boxes that were left by Santa for both me and my sister, I noticed something behind one of them, not wrapped or bow-tied in any way, but just sitting there with enveloped beside it. It was Gundenga.

Tears began to fill my eyes. I couldn’t figure out how Santa had managed to bring me my most cherished item. I opened the envelope and pulled out a short letter, typed out.

Dear Morgan,

I have found Gundenga in the land of lost toys and brought him back home.

Merry Christmas,

Santa Claus

As you can imagine, any questions I had about the existence of Santa were gone. This inexpensive little plush toy was very sentimental to me, even at the age of seven.

When it comes to the best gift I’ve ever given, I don’t think about how much money I spent. It’s the care that’s put into a gift that really matters.

I have personally made a variety of things before, even though I’m not as crafty as I’d like to be. I have make cakes for my family on their birthdays and I have handmade cards for friends on other occasions, but I admit I wish I was craftier than I am.

When I was in the eighth grade, I took a home economics class where we learned how to cook certain dishes and to use a sewing machine. We had made small pillows and pajama pants in the past, but eventually we made it to the final class project where we made blankets. They didn’t use a sewing machine, but still took a lot of time and effort because of all the cutting and tying that was required.

I made my own the first time around, making just a few small mistakes before the holiday season was beginning to roll around, I decided that these blankets would make great gifts considering that they were hand made with just a little bit of care and time.

At this point, I had already bought a gift for my mom, so I decided that these blankets should be made for my dad and my sister. It would be much easier to have the help of my mom to drive me to the fabric store (considering that I was thirteen and couldn’t drive myself quite yet).

I remember spreading all the fabric out on our pool table and working on it when my dad was still at work and my sister was at her gymnastics classes. I did this every day for a whole week or two, considering my short time window to work on it, until they were finally done.

I remember getting a positive response from both of them and they are both still used today around the house. These blankets were by no means the most expensive or spectacular gifts in the world, but because of the effort and time I put into them, I would consider them the best gifts I have given. I definitely strive in the future to put more thought and time into the gifts I give, as gifts are not about the expenses, but the thought and love that was put into them.

It was beautiful. Although it was roughly seven years ago, I remember it like it was yesterday. I unzipped the brown case and pulled aside the covering cloth to reveal the most beautiful instrument I had ever seen. A soft, rosy brass lacquered the outside, the valves topped with milky white pearls, the tone smooth and mellow – not too harsh, not too thin. Although it was owned before it came to me, there was something about this instrument that seemed to fit me. This trumpet, in a way even I can’t explain, was immediately mine.

The trumpet was a gift to me from my mother just before my sixteenth birthday. A teacher at my high school was selling his, as the trumpet had gone unused for too long to justify keeping. My music teacher encouraged me to look at it; it was time, he said, that I move past my beat-up Jupiter student model. I had outgrown it, and it was time to remove the musical training wheels at last. I don’t know what inspired my mother to purchase the horn. What person in her right mind would buy something as expensive as a professional model trumpet for what was, as far as she could have known, a teenage hobby, as likely to change as a haircut? She must have known, before even I did, that music, to me, was more than a passing phase.

I will be forever grateful for the gift she gave me that day. It is a rare sort of gift—one that I have used nearly every day (sometimes multiple times each day) for seven years and counting. It is a gift that, each day, challenges me to be better, to work harder, to understand it a little more, one step at a time. Although I quickly outgrew my first trumpet, the student model, I fear I will never grow into the one I have now. As soon as I master one skill, another stares me down, untamed. Yes you can play it, but can you play it faster? Can you give it a twist the audience won’t expect? Can you make it sound beautiful? Music, I have learned, is about much more than playing the right notes at the right time. It is about giving life to the notes on the page that without you will never be heard. It is an art that requires a lifetime of dedication and constant work.

The trumpet, my daily companion and greatest adversary, is now a fixture that I cannot imagine my life without. It has introduced me to all of my closest friends, and is at the heart of all of my dearest memories. It has taken me to Orlando to perform in parades at theme parks, to Buffalo with the Mount Basketball team as they took on Villanova in the NCAA tournament, and the University of South Carolina for a three-day clinic. It has been by my side during weddings and funerals, along with fundraisers and formal concerts. It has introduced me to different cultures, inviting me to perform a Chinese oratorio with a bible church in Rockville, and a winter concert with the American Balalaika Symphony in Alexandria. I have built communities with my fellow musicians, and their friendship and inspiration have been a constant gift to me through every adventure.

If you told me those seven years ago, when I first played a note on my beautiful new trumpet, that I would be playing on it for seven more years, not to mention that I would earn a bachelor’s degree in music, I would have heartily laughed. That is part of what makes it such a great gift. It was not the type of gift that would give me a few days or even a few months of pleasure before being used up or forgotten. I didn’t even fully understand at the time how much such a gift could give. It is the type of gift that has allowed me to become a better person, a more disciplined, well-rounded, creative person. It has made me accustomed to my own many, many mistakes without losing the drive to get better, to practice more, to push harder all the time. It has forced me to become the type of person who shows up time and time again ready to fail until it is finally time to succeed (I am still waiting for that success by the way!).

My trumpet is the greatest gift I’ve ever been given because it has given me seven years and counting of joy. It has been the cause of countless hours of anxious practice, the sweat, blood and tears that led each time to the satisfaction that can only come from hard work and a lot of love. It has given me the gift of relationships, as I have been introduced to nearly all of my deepest friends through music in some way. It has stretched my brain, forcing me to speak in a new language, a new set of rules and codes, a new history to learn and theory to uncover.

I hope some day I will give a gift as special to someone else as the trumpet has been to me. I hope the gifts I give to others will encourage them to follow their passions, not only in the material things I may give them, but in the relationship we have. I hope I will be supportive to my friends and family in the future as mine have been to me. Perhaps even more beautiful than the trumpet she gave me seven years ago, are the countless concerts and performances my mom has traveled far to attend for the past ten years. I will never be able to repay her for a gift so incredible; all I can hope to do is play my heart out for her, and pass along the love she has always given so freely.

Merry Christmas to all! May the gifts you give and receive be filled with love this year!