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.