In first years after my brothers, sister, and I left home, there were several Christmases in which our ability to give fell far short of our desire. In fact, we often found ourselves getting very creative if we were going to give any Christmas presents at all. But those early Christmases also contained some of finest gifts I've ever received, and one of those was gift my brother Jim thought he couldn't give.

Jim had chosen a difficult road, working for himself instead of collecting a weekly paycheck like one I got from department store where I worked, and his funds were always limited.

As Christmas approached, we all searched for perfect gift for each family member. Since I knew Jim harbored a secret desire to write, I bought him two beautifully hardbound books consisting of nothing but empty pages, so he could fill them with his own words. They weren't expensive, but I knew he'd love them.

As we gathered around our parents' tree on Christmas morning, Jim's smile shown brightly as he watched his loved ones begin to unwrap strangest assortment of gifts I'd ever seen. One by one, family members exchanged mystified looks as they opened one totally unexplainable gift after another. My sister received a well-used meditation candle. My youngest brother opened a half-empty box of incense. But Jim just sat cross-legged on floor, unfazed by puzzled looks and embarrassed thank you's.

There's a phrase that’s become popular over past few years that fills me with wonder. That phrase is "quality time." We've all heard it, and we all seem to accept it as a real concept. But to average country person, that phrase is difficult to comprehend.

Here's what I mean. Last summer, my 10-year-old son Cody and I spent an entire day walking fields, checking fences. When we saw a post that needed straightening or a strand of wire that needed to be tightened, we set right to work. Sweat poured across our faces, our shirts grew soaked from hard work we were engaged in. But as we strained against task at hand, we talked about his little league baseball team and how he could improve his hitting to opposite field.

Then, as we walked a little farther down fence line, we laughed till we cried when a covey of quail nearly gave us a heart attack as they exploded out of grass in front of us. We heard amazingly varied call of a cardinal in woods off to our right. We saw two red-tailed hawks circling lazily over our heads, and marveled at how they could see field mice at such a height.