The best Christmas present. 2012 edition.

Christmas morning this year was the same as it always is. We like things that way, the same as before. We opened gifts, I remembered a couple I forgot to wrap and scurried to get those to their recipients. This year, my husband had one he had forgotten to wrap, and it was for me!

He gave me a plain brown box, then went into his usual second-guessing explanation about how he thought the gift was a good idea, but I might think it's dumb....

It was a cup and two pieces of paper. In fact, the cup was broken.

"This is my most important gift to you. My feelings about Christmas and society's expectations on us to spend are well known. I agreed to get you 'something you want, something you need, something to keep you warm and something to read'. This is all of those things but it's mostly something you need. It's symbolic on numerous levels. It's just an empty cup with a beautiful flower on it. It's chipped and imperfect. We are chipped and imperfect but that doesn't make me love you any less. It makes me love you more because you are unique. On a different level, the song "Comes A Time" addresses the human condition of shutting off emotions and giving up in the face of challenges. That isn't exactly what this is about but we will face challenges in the next year or two. We are strong. "You got to make it somehow on the dreams you still believe". The song goes on to say "Don't give up, you got an empty cup only love can fill". So this is my gift to you. An empty cup that only love can fill. I promise you that no matter how challenging things get, you will always have my undying love. We can do without much of the things around us but I hope this simple cup represents to you what is truly important. I love you!"

The other piece of paper had the lyrics to the song he mentioned in the note "Comes A Time" by the Grateful Dead.

What a good man.