Last minute gift idea

I just love this poem/story written by my favorite farmer Tara Smith from Tara Firma Farms.

Thanks Tara for your inspiring newsletter this week (and all that you do)!

Happy Holidays!

To all the Parents, Aunts, Uncles, Sisters and Brothers…What to get for Christmas…

Twas the night before Christmas

And all across the Farm

Not a creature was stirring

All quiet in the Barn

The children were nestled

Scattered about the house (four sons – 21, 22, 23, 14, a girl that is supposedly just a friend and another kid from who knows where)

My husband I were sleeping (hiding)

I awoke to a SNAP…one less mouse (peanut butter in the trap works really well)

Staring at the ceiling

Feeling the dread

Knowing I would soon

Be getting out of bed

Wrapping the presents

And filling the socks

Wondering if they would think it funny

If they were filled with Rocks

We don’t need any thing

We don’t need more stuff

We don’t need to waste

It’s all useless fluff

The packaging and paper

Our landfills are full

Our buying and buying

Needing more is just bull.

It’s never enough

All the junk, all the stuff

It doesn’t make us happy

Myself I rebuff

It’s not about stuff

It’s not about things

It’s not about toys or gas cards or rings

It’s not about spending

Time in the store

It’s not about giving out crap

Anymore.

It has to change

We have to wake up

We have to think long term

The “stuff” we have to give up

So I took out a pen

And paper to write

I made several renditions

Notes to my boys that night

I wrote of how proud

I am of them all

How we laugh together

They are really a ball

I wrote of their wins

And how they show character when they lose

I wrote of honesty

And lack of drug taking and little booze.

I tried to explain

How a mother does feel

To see her children

Engage in a way that is real.

In the wee morning hours

I drank coffee and cried

The paper was stained

And the tear stains shown as they dried.

With so little stuff

Under the tree

I worried they would wake

And be disappointed in me.

I watched as they gathered

Around the lit tree

Each taking out their letters

Reading silently.

I watched them tear up

As the heart embraces

The emotion it feels

It showed in their faces

The love of a parent

So simple to give

It lasts forever

Any stuff it will outlive.

It takes only time

And a paper and pen

Give them a gift

They will remember when…and always…
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Your Farmer, Tara Smith

P.S. If you add a little cash to the envelope they’re really like it. (added by  @Sally_K) I want to be Tara when I grow up.