[2022-12-20] Connecting
A friend dropped off a Christmas gift today. I thought it was sweet that he delivered it to my door. We chatted for a few minutes on my doorstep before he went on his way—more presents to give out.
Back inside my house, I opened the gift bag. It contained coffee beans (nice, as we love coffee in our house), a card plus a sweet picture of my friend, his wife and their two cats in pyjamas (both the card and the pyjamas were in buffalo plaid, which I have a thing for) and a letter about the year he's had and what he hopes to achieve in 2023. Both the gift and the conversation were lovely.
I sat down at my computer and composed a thank-you email to my friend. Even though I had thanked him in person, I wanted to express my appreciation for the specific elements of his gift: the coffee, the card and photo, and the letter.
Being thanked generally for a gift is nice, but being acknowledged specifically for the choices we made is delightful. Knowing that our recipient not only appreciated our gesture but also loved and would use what we gave them makes us feel good about giving.
Because my friend and I had talked about languages during our brief discussion on my porch, I wished him Merry Christmas in English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish:
Merry Christmas
Joyeux Noël
Buon Natale
Feliz Natal
Feliz Navidad
We got on the subject after I mentioned that I had been listening to Portuguese vocabulary when he had knocked on the door. He shared that he had spent a year learning Italian—with the help of Duolingo, like me—and that he might next learn Spanish. We both felt that our knowledge of French made it easier to pick up other romance languages.
Giving gifts, saying thanks and sharing interests are all wonderful ways to connect with people, and sometimes those people become friends.
