Recycled Gifts

Green Holiday Action #13

By recycled gift I do not mean rewrapping something you didn't want and giving it to someone else.

I mean giving something you treasure as a gift to someone else. Some of my most prized possessions, the things that feed my soul, have multiple values. They are items of beauty or brilliance, but they also represent an aspect of someone important in my life.

Here are few of my favorite examples:

• a small glass vase I received as a wedding gift. My cousin Alice had bought it for herself on her own honeymoon 40 years earlier.
• a book of poetry by Edgar A. Guest that my grandfather held second to the bible for influence on his life. The truly unique part is this grandfather was killed in an accident when my mother was only three years old. My Aunt Florence gave me this book and through it I know a grandfather I never met. It is always on my night stand.
• a wooden glove box that my grandmother Dearborn gave me that had been hand decorated with woodburning by her mother. It has been my treasure chest since my 14th birthday.
  
• a tiny silver pin of a gecko given to me by my friend Gerri. Her husband made it for her, she wore it for years and then gave it to me. She knows I'm a lizard lover. (See western fence lizard.)
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Don't wait to will things to people that are important to you. Give beloved items while you can still tell the stories that go with them. Give good memories and the best part of yourself.