About a week and a half ago, I took a walk over to Love Park because I wanted to check out the Christmas Village.

Love Park is home to the Christmas Village, which is a traditional German Christmas Market, featuring more than 60 vendors in decorated booths and tents with all sorts of holiday goodies including presents, ornaments, jewelry, food and more.

Unfortunately the day I chose to go, most of the vendors were closed due to the heavy snowfall earlier that day. However, I enjoyed myself immensely by just walking around and looking at all the Christmas decorations; taking a slew of photographs.

The thing I love most about the Christmas Village is that it’s simple and modest – nothing flashy or commercial – just a homemade and old-fashioned Christmas feel.

And just as I was about to leave, I walked passed a wooden wall (the one you see in the picture above), which had ornaments hanging on it with handwritten wishes.

So I stopped, and began reading some of the wishes. Actually, I read ALL of them. And about halfway through reading, I decided to take pictures of the ornaments and share them with you on my blog. I really didn’t know how I was going to present these ornaments, but something inside told me to take the pictures and I would know what to do with them later.

So I did.

Now here’s the cool part.

As I was looking through the monitor screen of my camera, I was suddenly overcome with emotion because I could actually feel the energy behind the words on the ornaments written by the people who wrote them; realizing that we are all interconnected to each other, having similar experiences no matter where we live on this earth.

We all experience loss. We all experience pain. We all go through periods of feeling vulnerable and small; needing support from our fellow-human beings, whether it be physical, emotional, a kind word, or even a silent prayer.

So we wish.

At one point, I brought my camera down from my eyes and just stood there crying. But they weren’t tears of sadness, no, they were tears of sobering love.

This has been a very enlightening Christmas for me, especially being in retail and seeing how challenging it’s been for so many people, financially. People are being tentative with purchases because they simply can’t afford it. People seem to be going back the basics of this holiday season; spending time with friends and family, and keeping their gift giving to a minimum.

But then again, perhaps this is what we’re learning.

Christmas is not about stuff. It’s about giving a gift that costs nothing.

It’s about sharing the love within our heart.

So before I left the Christmas Village that day, I said a silent prayer, sharing the love within my own heart to all the wishes on the wall with the intention that they come to be.

It seems that through this experience, I received more than I gave because it taught me something.

Simple. Modest. Just an old-fashioned, Christmas feel.

Love…

And thank you all for your comments while I’ve been gone last week. I look forward to catching up with you soon! X