A detail for birthday

We will find our happiness in people instead of gifts.

It seems like giving a small present might look trifling compared to other more valuable gifts. It seems like spending more money tells more about a person and it´s not true.

Let´s take for example a purse against a pair of earrings. Does spending more money in the purse than in the earrings make the first one a better present? Does the person who gave us the purse love us more than the one who gave the earrings? Comparisons are nonsense and the consumer society doesn’t help at all.

Nowadays even the first Communion seems to be as a small wedding. A room almost full of presents, of huge presents, for them to occupy lots of space and to give the feeling of having received a lot of them. Our happiness is sometimes related to the amount of presents received. If there are a lot of them we would be happier than if we have fewer.

We have reached the point of absurdity where we have to own stuff only to own it. Where will the parents store that amount of presents? Furthermore, a few days later even the kids are bored of playing with all those toys because they have too many of them.

Not to mention the baptism, where parents choose the godfather or godmother of their children depending on the money they have. It is sad but it happens. There are no more godfathers who pray for the children. That essence of baptism is lost. Praying is the less important thing. Nowadays the point is that every year those godparents give away to the kid a well-deserved present, because that´s what godparents are meant to do.

In my opinion that is a wrong point of view, because we are forgetting the most important part, and that is God. And you can´t replace God with presents. Gifts leave an empty feeling, you forget about them and they are removable depending on the desires of the moment. Meanwhile, God is always there and you can´t get tired of Him.

This society doesn´t know that the happiness is in the details not in the perfect gift. And the details do not have to be necessarily material. How much affection, endearment, love, closeness, dialogue or spending time together does this world lack? And when do we think about giving gifts like those?

If I had to account for the presents I receive for my birthday, I would be satisfied with having those who are important to me by my side. They are who accept the invitation and accompany me in such an important day of my life. Everything else doesn´t matter, or, at least, it shouldn’t matter.