Figuring out your gift-giving budget, I'm sure.  Here's a reminder of the Best Gift of All, which costs nothing.  My daughter Emily had a great Thanksgiving blog, and I asked her if I could share it.  Here it is...

THOSE THREE LITTLE WORDS. 

The other day I was at Cassie's house as she was leaving for work.  She was walking out the door and called to me, "Bye, Em, love you!"  Without skipping a beat I called right back, "Bye Honey.  I love you, too!"

And then I stopped and just stood there, feeling how amazing that felt. Three little words. I Love You. Amazing to hear. Amazing to say. Like warm honey. Or Sunshine. Or Magic.

I was born with those words just kind of naturally dripping out of my mouth. My entire life, it seems, I have felt love so deeply it hurts. And if I love, I express it. Always have, always will. If I love someone, it just makes no freaking sense to keep it a secret. If someone is incredible and lovable why the hell would I NOT tell them?

I'm not talking about love of the romantic variety. Telling someone you love them THAT way must done in the right time and in the right way. I'm not talking about the I-don't-want-to-live-without-you-I-think-about-you-all-the-time-please-jump-my-bones-and-have-babies-with-me kind of love. I'm talking about the I-see-who-you-are-you-are-incredible-and-lovable-and-make-the-world-a-better-place-to-be kind of love.

I look around me and I see a world that is just so screwed up when it comes to love. We are so afraid of it. We misuse it. We use it as a weapon to hurt or manipulate. We withhold it -- carefully measuring out only just enough. We only give it if we are certain to have it returned -- or only give the exact amount we expect we will be given.

It stuns me how many friends I have that I love dearly, and I know they love me, but when I say, "I love you," they stutter and stammer and get flushed and skip right over it and change the subject. It makes me sad. Not because they don't say it back, I know they love me. I don't say it to manipulate them into saying it. I don't say it because I want me to hear it, I say it because I want them to hear it. I want them to know it. They deserve to know they are amazing and incredible and thoroughly lovable. We all do.

Here is my Thanksgiving challenge to you. If you are a person who has a hard time saying "I love you," SAY IT. This week is a week for being grateful. We all have people in our lives that we are grateful for. TELL THEM. If you are a person who has a hard time hearing "I Love You," GET THE HELL OVER IT. Seriously. Hear it, take it in and say it back. Don't question it, ignore it, gloss over it or dismiss it. Give it generously and receive it gratefully.

Love is delicious. Love is life giving. Love is not to be hoarded or stored up for some distant future. There is an endless supply with more than enough to go around. Love is everywhere -- in ridiculous amounts. Love is to be felt and bathed in and celebrated. Pour it on, soak it up, drink it down, roll in it, sing it, breathe it, dream it, live it. It will change everything. I promise.

                                               --Emily Pearson
                                                 dancingwithcrazy.blogspot.com

 
Which reminds me of a poem I wrote long ago:

UNFED 

We feed one another in rations,
Serve affection measured to
The minimum daily requirement,
The very acceptable least--

While love bursts the walls
Of our larder,
Wondering, amazed,
Why we are afraid
To feast.

(From Beginnings and Beyond, www.clpearson.com/personal_gifts.htm)
  

PERSONALLY AUTOGRAPHED BOOKS TO HELP YOUR CHRISTMAS GIVING!  At least half your list would love the new In Dog Years I'm Dead, jokes and quips about growing older ("Then you were hoping for a BMW--Now you're hoping for a BM.") Several Christmas classics.  Free copy of No More Goodbyes with every order over $30 through December 6^th.

NO MORE GOODBYES CONTINUES TO BLESS GAY PEOPLE AND THEIR FAMILIES.  As awareness continues to rise about the inexcusable bullying young gay people are subjected to daily, which sometimes results in suicide, let's all commit to assuring those in our circle of influence that their lives matter, that in spite of hard times now, with the dedication of all of us, It Gets Better!  See a terrific short video from Broadway, one of the huge number available from that project, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeKI8biAglU

I'm thrilled to be a part of all this with my book No More Goodbyes: Circling the Wagons around Our Gay Loved Ones.  Almost daily I get emails telling me how it has helped someone decide not to give up.  Here's a short excerpt from a recent one:

            "I wasn't irrational about committing suicide.  I thought through every possible alternative that I could think of. Luckily, during those few days before my birthday I started chatting with a guy in Salt Lake who had gone through his struggle with being Mormon and gay and he had some words that were new to me. He suggested, no, pleaded with me that I read your book No More Goodbyes. I immediately went to the bookstore to buy it.  I devoured that book. It literally saved my life. I was so close to giving up."

            If you or someone you know needs this kind of encouragement, please see www.clpearson.com/personal_gifts.htm.
 

FROM THE CLP TRIVIA FILES: On Thanksgiving morning I got up, lit the fire, and finished reading The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.  Great book--the story of "colored maids" of white women in the early '60s.  So grateful that we have made such huge progress on racial issues in fifty years.  So hopeful we can do the same for all those we see as "the other"--Christian, Jewish, Muslim--and certainly our gay brothers and sisters. 

May your December be warm in every way!  And let us remember, with all our gift giving--

That love is all there is
Is all we know of love.
                  ~Emily Dickinson

Merry Christmas and love from your friend,