Notes from my Knapsack 12-18-2025 replacement
Jeff Gill
My Christmas wish list for you
___
Here we are on the final stretch to Christmas Day, Christmas joy, Christmas packages and presents and dinners.
Shopping is pretty much a done deal, right? I know there's a thought we could all go out and cram the stores and shopping malls on the last weekend before Christmas Eve, but that seems almost as quaint as roasting chestnuts or lighting candles on the tree.
We all have Christmas lists of one sort or another. Shopping for those holiday parties and meals, gifts to purchase for family and friends, and if you're fortunate, you have someone who wants you to make a list for them of what you want for Christmas. Mostly that's a childhood thing, but you can do it as an adult, as well.
What I'd like to do is give you all a Christmas list, but not of what I want you to get for me (that'd be non-sequential bills in bundles of a thousand, unmarked), but what I wish for you. Maybe my Christmas wish list is in line with what you'd like to get, maybe it won't be, but it's sincere on my part, and perhaps worth considering as what you could want to receive this holiday season.
For you, I wish for a good walk in a warm coat on a crisp night, snow all around, moonlight overhead, and going long enough to see a variety of lights and decorations not just on the outside of houses, but also the trees in the window lit up and ready to do. Don't trespass, don't be a stalker, but who doesn't like to see a Christmas tree from the street? Walking is something we all could do with a bit more of, a great deal more frequently. To start, I wish for you a Christmas season stroll. Add miles as you see fit.
May your stove have some activity this holiday season. If you store stuff in there, take it out, put it on the porch or something, and make cookies. Not your thing? You know, they sell cookie rounds with faces and trees and such on them that you take out of the package, put on a cookie sheet (or sheet pan), and bake in the oven. Warm cookies, I wish for you. Cookie dough is not that hard, though. And you might be surprised at how easy it is to bake bread. In any case, good warm food from your oven I wish for you.
And while I know Christmas cards are largely lost in the flurry of email and internet communications, and Christmas letters are an easily mocked genre of humble-bragging, I wish for you a note. A note you write, with pen (or pencil, or crayon, or Sharpie if that's your jam) and paper, and you put in the mail with a stamp (they sell them at the Post Office, still a deal when you think about it), and send it to… someone. I don't care who. But there's someone you can send a note to. Not a card, sorry, but a note. A note in a card if you want, but at least three sentences, written without AI, to someone you have something to say to.
Those are my Christmas wishes, for you. May all your wishes of the holiday season be fulfilled, whatever they are!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's got his own list, and is checking it twice. Tell him if you've been naughty or nice at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
My Christmas wish list for you
___
Here we are on the final stretch to Christmas Day, Christmas joy, Christmas packages and presents and dinners.
Shopping is pretty much a done deal, right? I know there's a thought we could all go out and cram the stores and shopping malls on the last weekend before Christmas Eve, but that seems almost as quaint as roasting chestnuts or lighting candles on the tree.
We all have Christmas lists of one sort or another. Shopping for those holiday parties and meals, gifts to purchase for family and friends, and if you're fortunate, you have someone who wants you to make a list for them of what you want for Christmas. Mostly that's a childhood thing, but you can do it as an adult, as well.
What I'd like to do is give you all a Christmas list, but not of what I want you to get for me (that'd be non-sequential bills in bundles of a thousand, unmarked), but what I wish for you. Maybe my Christmas wish list is in line with what you'd like to get, maybe it won't be, but it's sincere on my part, and perhaps worth considering as what you could want to receive this holiday season.
For you, I wish for a good walk in a warm coat on a crisp night, snow all around, moonlight overhead, and going long enough to see a variety of lights and decorations not just on the outside of houses, but also the trees in the window lit up and ready to do. Don't trespass, don't be a stalker, but who doesn't like to see a Christmas tree from the street? Walking is something we all could do with a bit more of, a great deal more frequently. To start, I wish for you a Christmas season stroll. Add miles as you see fit.
May your stove have some activity this holiday season. If you store stuff in there, take it out, put it on the porch or something, and make cookies. Not your thing? You know, they sell cookie rounds with faces and trees and such on them that you take out of the package, put on a cookie sheet (or sheet pan), and bake in the oven. Warm cookies, I wish for you. Cookie dough is not that hard, though. And you might be surprised at how easy it is to bake bread. In any case, good warm food from your oven I wish for you.
And while I know Christmas cards are largely lost in the flurry of email and internet communications, and Christmas letters are an easily mocked genre of humble-bragging, I wish for you a note. A note you write, with pen (or pencil, or crayon, or Sharpie if that's your jam) and paper, and you put in the mail with a stamp (they sell them at the Post Office, still a deal when you think about it), and send it to… someone. I don't care who. But there's someone you can send a note to. Not a card, sorry, but a note. A note in a card if you want, but at least three sentences, written without AI, to someone you have something to say to.
Those are my Christmas wishes, for you. May all your wishes of the holiday season be fulfilled, whatever they are!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's got his own list, and is checking it twice. Tell him if you've been naughty or nice at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
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