Like it or not, gifts are a big part of the holidays. Beginning in childhood, when holidays are only about getting gifts, the tradition eventually transforms into years of list-making, shopping, wrapping and, inevitably, returning. Along with loved ones, there are people we like to thank (teachers, employees), as well as the host/hostess gifts we bring to parties. If you love to shop, all this gift-giving can be fun; if you’re organized and prepared, you might shop year-round. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The greatest gift is a portion of oneself.” For most of us, however, our selves, like our time, are already too portioned out.

Yet, we can’t negate the importance of gifts, especially to children. While I can’t recall a single holiday church service of my childhood, I do remember certain special gifts. As a very young girl, I once got an Easy-Bake Oven. That miraculous machine could turn water and powder into tiny chocolate cakes, using only a light bulb! I also remember the excitement I felt when I graduated from my baby doll to a Barbie® doll.

Looking back, my favorite gifts were things that helped me imagine someone I wanted to be. One year, a velvet choker with a cameo inspired fantasies of a future as a hip fashionista, a future I lived another year when I got a long “maxi” coat and white go-go boots. I played a particular Carly Simon record so often I still know the words to each song; her lyrics were racier and more sophisticated than anything

I had encountered. In my room, singing into my hairbrush, I was as beautiful, sexy and cool as Carly Simon on her album cover—braless, wearing a fabulous floppy hat, and looking like someone who, of course, James Taylor loved. He would love me too, if only he could see me singing into my hairbrush, wearing my velvet choker.

As we age, the process becomes more about giving gifts, but it’s still about how it makes us feel. Remember how you felt the first time you were able to buy something for your parents that they wouldn’t have spent the money on themselves? The look on your child’s face when you surprised him/her with an unexpected gift? The designer purse you bought for a friend who couldn’t afford it herself?

The bottom line is that a gift from the heart makes everyone feel good. Writer Anne Lamott tells of randomly winning a huge ham while shopping. While waiting for the ham she didn’t want, but felt obligated to cheerfully receive, she began to think of it as “that #%@ing ham.” When she was finally able to leave the store, ham in hand, she ran into a friend who had no money or food for herself and her children. In seconds, “that #%@ing ham” became, for Lamott and her friend, the “ham of God.”

That is the best gift of all—one that brings joy to both the recipient and the giver, one that helps us connect with one another. We wish you those gifts this year—the gifts of joy and connection that come with truly giving and relating to others. And if you can’t think of a gift like that for everyone on your list, a nice sweater always comes in handy.