I hate concentrating on the gift-getting part of Christmas. My two-year-old would tell you how I've burst into tears over a prayer of thanks because I think of all of the people I know who are not surrounded by warmth, love, and creature comforts as I am. My heart remembers living without the joy I had before my spouse and before my children. I am still in awe that I got here from there. I got here from there, in part, because one year I did concentrate on the presents I received for Christmas. That Christmas changed my life.

I laid out my Christmas booty on my bed while cleaning my apartment. My attention was drawn to it over and over again in the course of my day. The oddest present was from my parents. It was a book light that clipped to a book cover. When my mother asked if I liked the gift, I couldn't help but be honest. "Sure it's a neat little gadget, Mom, but when I read at night I can leave the lamp on. Who am I keeping awake? The cats?"

It wasn't a very nice thing to say, but I was feeling peevish that year. Book lights, soap, tea, a book about eating all your food out of a small bowl. WTF.

The best gift I received that year actually came before Christmas. A friend from work brought me a foot-high table top Christmas tree that she'd bought on sale at a hardware store years before. It wouldn't stand up on its own, so she glued it to a brick. It came with a string of white lights and two dozen miniature ornaments she'd collected. I think she gave it to me because she noticed that I never had a tree in my house at Christmas time. I loved it. I sipped champagne and wore my Santa hat and watched "It's a Wonderful Life" while I decorated it. It was the most fun I'd had at Christmas in years.

I think that's what's made me peevish with the other gifts that I got. My friend had given me a gift from her heart because she saw me. Her gift awakened that part of me that felt unseen. I thought about it a lot. Why were people who had known me for thirty years giving me soap and tea? Why was my mother giving me a book light? These are the kinds of presents you give to people you barely know. Who knew me best? Me. The only way to not be disappointed at Christmas was to start giving gifts to myself.

At first, I giggled like a child doing it—ordering what I wanted from Amazon.com and having it gift-wrapped. In the field for what the tag should say, I typed, "From Me to Me" and laughed myself silly. As the gifts arrived, I put them under the little tree, which now had a string of colored lights and a little velvet tree skirt I'd found.

I went off to my Christmas dinner with friends, but I was secretly anxious to get back to the gifts I'd bought for myself. The spinster Aunt gifts I received that Christmas didn't bother me. I put the soap in the shower, the tea in the cupboard. I opened my gifts to myself. And the next Christmas I did it again, looking that much more forward to my ritual. It wasn't lonely. It was wonderful to know that I could give to myself. I always had the gifts wrapped, and I always wrote little tags to myself—little fortune cookie love notes from Santa Claus.

I had plans to do something even better for myself for the fourth year, but all those cosmic bows I removed from cosmic packages that I never knew I was unwrapping were taking root. An amazing, miraculous thing happened in my life early that next year. I met Asha.

I spent the whole of 2003 unwrapping gifts with her. By Christmas of 2003, we were giddy about Christmas gifts that we would unwrap together. By the Christmas of 2006, we were unwrapping presents in our own house with our daughter. That little fake tree had grown from one foot to six. And this year, we have our son with us.

Actually, I still have that little tree. The lights burned out on it. It's down in the basement somewhere. We put the miniature ornaments on our big tree now. But, eventually I would like to bring it out again when our tree-molesting kitten is grown a bit and our soon-to-be-creeping son is grown a bit. I will tell our children what a magic tree it is that gave me what I wished for, long before I knew what that wish really was.

I believe that little tree gave me Asha and Wren and Harry. That little tree gave me the home I really wanted and the job I most desired. Maybe we've had it wrong all along. It's not Christmas presents, but Christmas presence. When we give fully present, we can awaken the receiver to receive fully present. To wrap, and tag, and receive your own desires is one of the most powerful miracles in the universe. I'm glad I didn't know that at the time so I never had a chance to fear it.

The last tag I wrote to myself, on the last Christmas I spent by myself said, "I do exist. Love, Santa Claus."