Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy. – Gretta Brooker Palmer

I LOVE getting gifts. I think most everybody does. The excitement of birthdays and Christmas morning can hardly be contained. Getting gifts is a great thing. I think that when you get give a gift, the excitement is even greater because you are doing something to make somebody else happy, and that in turn makes you feel happier. This post isn’t supposed to be about gifts – because you can give happiness to others in a myriad of different ways, it doesn’t always have to be with a tangible object. But I’m thinking about gifts because I came across a piece of jewelry my kids bought and paid for with their own money and gave me for Christmas one year. That was the best year ever, because for the first time, they weren’t as concerned with opening their own gifts as they were with me opening mine. They could barely contain their glee and pleasure as I slowly unwrapped the gift. And the happiness for me came not from the piece of jewelry, but from their joy and happiness. But like I said, what you do to make someone happy doesn’t have to be a gift. It can be helping to rake leaves, or dropping off a meal when you know a friend is in a bind, or offering to babysit their kids so they can have 30 minutes to call their own. Try it and see how good making someone else happy makes you feel.