I remember being a kid on christmas morning. Waking up early. Actually getting out of bed early after having not been able to sleep all night. You know how when you lay there all night, maybe it wasn’t christmas eve, but you just couldn’t help to expect somethig wonderful? Like you couldn’t wait to leap out of bed because you knew you were going to receive something fantastic?
Gifts are cool that way. When you take a normal, everyday thing, like a book, or a CD, and as you wrap it up in a nice package, it takes on an almost mysterious quality.  When you receive it, you don’t know what is inside. Your mind begins to wonder what it is. And because it is carefully wrapped, maybe with a ribbon, you start to assume good things about it. This is something wonderful, you think. This is something really special, you hope. You are sure that this is something you are going to really enjoy.
Like when you see something, and you are not sure what’s inside. Sometimes people give those gifts that are wrapped up in box after box after until the gift is nestled nicely and safely deep inside, where it was waiting for you to discover it. And you do realize that opening the gift is half the fun, don’t you? And when somebody puts all that time and effort into something, knowing you will enjoy the discovery, that in and of itself is really fantastic, isn’t it?
Imagine, now, if you will, the best gift you ever recieved. The coolest present somebody ever gave you. The most wonderfully wrapped package that you ever had the pleasure of being able to discover what is inside. You might have gotten a bike, or a car, or even a stack of money. What was the coolest gift you were able to ever give yourself to somebody else? What was the most fun you had hiding something you knew somebody else would be able to discover this?
Do you know what the greatest gift is? The greatest gift that be a source of joy and and wonder and support for as many people as you can imagine? The greatest gift that can help people through tough times, and let people know that anything is achievable if you set your mind, right? The gift that can convince people that no matter how bad things are, you can always overcome them? That no matter what other people think or say or do, you always have yourself, and your choices? Do you really know what the greatest gift ever is?
You.
But you already knew that, didn’t you?