At home we have a Christmas tree that is two meters tall. After having a small ornament that hung on the door of my family home every December, we went on to have such a large tree that decorating it not only requires time, physical effort, and creativity, but also a lot of money.

Due to different economic and family circumstances, it had been a while since we decorated it. We preferred to use simpler decorations, like a sculpture of the nativity scene, which we place in the center of the living room and makes Christmas part of the house. But this time, at the suggestion of my youngest niece, who is 8 years old and wrote her letter to Santa, we decided to take out and decorate the tree. At first, it seemed like a beautiful idea, purposeful and very inspiring, but as we kept buying decorations and spending money, I saw the tremendous trap I had fallen into.

Since my niece and her little friends had made their cards, they wanted to put them on a tree and asked us to set up the tree. With the idea of not being a Grinch, I took out the old ornaments to start decorating, but many of the ornaments didn’t work, and the same happened with the lights. Undeterred, I went out to buy things, but the more I bought, the more I realized that since the tree is big, it needs twice as many ornaments as any other tree. As I kept buying, I wondered when it had occurred to me to buy such a big tree.

With a hole in my finances, we began the task of decorating the Christmas tree. Thank God the whole family helped, and we were able, with creativity and patience, to adorn the tree. It must be said that it was not easy, but it’s all about motivation, imagination, and good taste. At first, everyone had an idea of how to do it, and that caused some discord, but little by little we reached an agreement, and the work flowed in harmony.

At the end of the day, we were physically and mentally exhausted, aware of the financial expense we had made and thinking that it would have been better to tell the girls to put the cards under their pillows, but all the discomfort disappeared when we saw my niece's eyes light up upon seeing the tree lit up. That's when we realized that there are things that are priceless, like a child's joy, for example.

I know that at this Christmas season it's easy to fall into the temptation of consumerism, but I want to believe that this physical and financial effort we made is to create memories for Yeyé and her little friends, and that when they grow up they will remember that there were people who did their best to make their Christmas exactly as they wished and to bring them joy.

There are gifts that cannot be wrapped and cannot be bought with money, like a child's emotion. Creating memories and joys is a beautiful gift. Because while we give joy, we receive a thousand years of life.