I always loved Christmas but always disliked the gifting side to the holiday. It’s a busy time of the year for everyone and buying lots of presents can be stressful. As much as I loved giving gifts, I cant say the same for receiving them I found it so sweet and kind when someone would present me with a card or a promise of a prayer etc. but when a wrapped up gift was involved that’s when things usually went wrong. I live a minimal life and see most items as clutter. When given a gift the thought behind it was so lovely but ashamedly I never really thought too much about the actual objects.  It used to frustrate people to no end that they could never think what to get me and I was never much help. Most of the time I was given socks, which is nice but there are only so many socks one house can hold

One day my sister, running out of time before ‘the big day’ was growing tired and and began to pester me as to what I wanted. Like every year the things listed I already had or simply did not need. As tends to happen with siblings of any age, the more annoyed she became the more annoying I became until finally on her 20^th time of asking what I want I said ‘an elephant, go get me an elephant its all I want’ To my surprise she stopped and simply said ‘okay’. I laughed about the silly remarks and forgot all about it until Christmas.

My sister handed me an envelope. I was delighted all the present giving was over and a simple card with some nice words was going to be my gift. When I opened it up a certificate fell out. It said that an elephant had been adopted in my name and the donation would help to protect and feed it each year in its homeland.

I was ecstatic, my sister had really bought me an elephant. Not only that, I didn’t have to find a room to keep it in or take it for walk every day! From then on, every gift I received was an animal adoption. I became known as ‘The Invisible Zookeeper’. All the family’s children would read all the updates coming in about all the exotic species and check in with how they were doing. Soon everyone wanted that as their present and every Christmas is a new adoption for us all to learn about. I couldn’t ask for a better gift. We learn about the animals; the animals get good food and safety and best of all no more Christmas socks.

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Care for each other, all of Gods creatures and our enviroment is our duty.

Reading Laudato si’ is a worthwhile exercise to increase our understanding.