Here we go...down to the wire.
There is soo soo much to do, and only a few set hours in which to do it.  Now we come to the place where we make the choices. Do we shop for the dregs which we might in some universe wrench into appropriate gifts, or do we choose another path?

We know what the last minute shopping looks like. What might the other path look like?

The greatest, most valuable and precious commodity we have is time. We live in a funny world where money and the things money buys are saved, hoarded and spent carefully. Yet time, the only commodity with which we are born, is usually squandered, wasted, and otherwise ignored, until we smack bang against a deadline and realize that not all the money in the world will expand the time we need.

As artists, we know this. We often dwell in the zone, that nebulous place where we let go of our educated minds and allow our creativity to make the choices. And that zone has a mysterious quality of compressing and expanding time...when we are in the zone it seems like minutes pass and yet we have achieved the work of many hours.

How do we bring that zonal time flux to our Holidays? Is is possible that we have neglected the difficult gift choices until the last minute because we don't want to face the truths behind those choices? ("Too expensive, too rare, too difficult.")

Let's take a few minutes of that precious time and stop. Hold the memories of shared experiences with those hard to gift folks,  and seek the most appropriate memory. Is there a way to encompass those memories? Can you create a "Ticket" to a future shared time (over a favored beverage or meal, or at a special place) where you specifically meet to reminisce? Shall the ticket specify that no other conversation will take place but the remembering of fondly shared experiences from the past?

Pause in your day, now. Sit quietly. Compose your mind, let go the scrambling crowds. Be still. Find that time.