With Christmas being only about a week away, the ultimate hustle and bustle to find the perfect gifts for everyone on your list has officially kicked into its highest gear. If you’re anything like me, you spend hours (maybe even weeks) contemplating the perfect gift for each person on your list, and even the perfect wrapping paper to accommodate them.

At the age of 23, my time during the holidays is spent prioritizing the gifts that I will give, rather than the gifts that I will receive. I’m much too old to be drafting and re-drafting a Christmas list for Santa, and I’m much too humble to make a wish list for my parents, or even my husband.

That doesn't mean I don't love to open gifts on Christmas morning, just as much as the next guy.

This does not make us materialistic, this makes us human.

Despite our age and our gender, our family dynamics or our past, we all love to receive Christmas gifts from the ones who mean the most to us.

Receiving a Christmas gift from my family, my husband or my closest friends means that they, too, spent hours (maybe even weeks) selecting the perfect gift for me.

It means that they took their hard-earned money and their precious free-time to buy or even make me what they believed to be the perfect Christmas gift. That is a gift in itself.

Christmas isn’t just about the presents or the parties, it’s about the feeling. It’s about spending this sacred day among those you love, and appreciating just how grateful you are.

Eat, drink & be merry!