The Best Gifts to Give

how to celebrate others without buying them stuff (Valentine's Day edition)

Welcome back, readers, and welcome, new readers!

It’s impossible not to be aware that Valentine’s Day is coming up, with sparkly hearts and sentimental slogans everywhere. We’d like to acknowledge the mixed feelings people have about this holiday – not everyone is going to receive a bouquet of roses. But the impulse to use special occasions to find creative ways to show people they are loved is a good one, and in this post we’d like to talk about our favorite ways to do this.

As members of the Bruderhof, each of us has publicly promised to dedicate to the church community “all your faculties, the entire strength of your body and soul, and all your property, both that which you now possess and that which you may later inherit or earn.” In practical terms, this means that none of us has any money, since all income is shared and then used for the good of all, or for charitable purposes. (If you want to find out more about this, our friend and fellow member Laura explains it well in this video.) But not having money does make it a little challenging to buy someone special a box of chocolates, so read on to find the ways we’ve found to let people know we love them.

Norann:

Living in community means that each day is a day to build, renew, and celebrate love. We don’t have to wait for calendared reminders to share our love for neighbors, family, work colleagues, or friends. But choosing to live a life without money to spend means two things when it comes to gift-giving: creativity and personalization. This means that each person within the community expresses their love in a different way – poetry, music, sewing, woodwork, growing flowers, painting, and a hundred other unique iterations.

I am not gifted at all in crafty creations, so I celebrate those who need love by giving the gift of time. I like to make space for people to slow down, be present, and enjoy each other’s company – and (always) with hearty nourishment. Whether it’s around a fire or a table, under a rainforest canopy or an old farm shed during a thunderstorm, the wonder of food to bring people together never fails.

A few years ago my parents-in-law, Jerry and Nancy, were celebrating a wedding anniversary here in Australia. It wasn’t a “milestone” anniversary, but I don’t set any store in those: each day of life is in itself a gift worthy of celebration.

Instead of booking a table at a restaurant, we repurposed an old farm shed and filled it with a simple but delicious paddock-to-plate menu:

We drove to the shed in an old landcruiser, and enjoyed the meal flanked by paddocks, kangaroos, and later, the stars.

Our parents maintain that this is their favorite wedding anniversary dinner of all time – in a rustic location surrounded by friends and family and laughter.

That recollection is a reminder to me that it’s not the money behind a gift that lends it worth: it’s the love behind it. And the memory that remains is the gift that keeps on giving.

Let’s use this Valentine’s Day as a renewal to choose true love every day, especially those we find difficult to love, those who have no one to love them, and those for whom this day might hold heartache.

For another story celebrating love, please enjoy the linked contribution from my dear friend and neigbour Eirene about a cake that’s become part of their family’s vocabulary for joy and celebration. Eirene is a poet, photographer, high school English teacher, and mother of four. Also, she bakes: Love in the Form of Angel Food Cake.

Trudi:

The approach of Valentine’s Day makes the teacher in me habitually plan a valentine-making project. It’s fun to help kids make a visual symbol of love for their parents every February 14th.

My parents got valentines from young me: big floppy, paper hearts with illustrations, an original little poem, or maybe just elaborate decorations. Sometimes a grandparent or aunt got one too. I was always happiest with a pencil or crayon in hand, so artwork was an easy way to show love any day of the year. To my mother’s disappointment and my father’s enjoyment, I much preferred cartooning silly faces to drawing “nice” pictures. (Bill Peet is right up there with Van Gogh in my mind.)

Surprisingly, both cartoons and lovely landscapes have their uses. I’m not as prolific as when I was a child but I still get out pencil and paper to rejoice with someone or to grieve with someone.

Love is a creative force. Showing love calls for creativity if you don’t have money. My creativity usually tends toward simple artwork, but everyone has different gifts. Expressions can be as varied as the reasons to show love. Yeongwol community consists of just twenty people and to keep ourselves from getting bored of each other, we celebrate each other. I love collaborating with others to make an occasion extra special in whatever way I can. Wedding anniversaries (no matter what number) merit attention: I might not buy roses, but I can pick and make a flower arrangement, gift the chocolate bar my mom sent to me (sorry, Mom, but I think you’d do the same), write a thoughtful card, play my violin, sing a song, stick a few paper hearts on their door, decorate their workplace, draw a picture, and more.

Recently for a 50th birthday, we all pitched in and made our usual communal meal festive with a birthday sign, balloons, and other cheerful décor. Two community members sang an old Korean pop song (or so I’m told – I was busy watching the third performer stealing the show with ridiculous facials and energetic miming). A few of us young ladies and girls donned traditional Korean dresses, dimmed the lights, and presented a homemade birthday cake aglow with fifty candles. (And then stage fright took over and we quickly retreated.)

I love giving people personalized love and attention on an anniversary, and the rest of the time I’m concocting ideas for festive occasions, sometimes themed to a holiday, sometimes entirely random. On Saturday nights, I and other youth cook a good meal for everyone here. But there’s always more to the evening than food and it’s become a time to awaken the inner child in all of us: check my personal substack for anecdotes and a sneak peek into Saturday nights at Yeongwol community. Valentine’s Day is going to be celebrated somehow and I’ll soon be checking the calendar for the next traditional Korean holiday. (We’ll probably skip St. Paddy’s Day. Too foreign.)

Marianne:

I’m going to go off topic since we are in the midst of a very special season for our family: maple sapping. Where we live in the Hudson Valley there are numerous sugar maples, and as winter starts turning to spring, the roots of a maple collect thousands of gallons of melted snow and turn it into sweet sap that the tree carries up to waiting branches and buds. This in one of nature’s many miracles and it’s still not fully understood how this process works [good]. No one really knows either when people started collecting and evaporating sap, but it had been going on for many years before Europeans arrived in North America.

Here in Woodcrest, sapping is done by teams of families, some of whom have been sapping the same grove of maples for decades (there are plenty of trees, and we all have our little territories). Our family of seven teams up with a family whose children are close in age to ours, and then with every new year the discussions begin: when to tap. When to put up the sapping shed. The sapping season runs for several months, but it peaks at different times every year depending on the weather. Sap runs when temperatures go below freezing in the night and over freezing in the day: the sunnier the day, the faster the run. We decided to go for it on the last weekend in January.

To tap a tree, you take a 7/16th" drill bit and put a hole in the tree about three feet from the ground, avoiding scar tissue from previous taps. (You can also tap Norway and Red maples, but the sap isn’t as sweet.) Hammer in a spile, and – if you picked your day right – watch the sap start dripping. Taste it. Hang a bucket. Repeat. We put in about 100 taps on Saturday, and on Monday evening collected 70 gallons of sap, which yielded 1¾ gallons of maple syrup.

First tap

First drips of sap. For our four-year-old, going sapping means standing by a tree and letting the sweets of nature drop into her mouth.

These are the reasons I like sapping season: it’s an excellent outdoor thing to do at times when sledding and skating aren’t available, but the fields are too muddy for other games. Hauling buckets of sap is strenuous enough to be satisfying, and of course it is always pleasing to collect things, and see how much you have gotten. You learn to notice many things: what trees are maples, what side of a tree will get most sun during the day (you want to tap on that side), whether it’s been warm enough for the sap to run during the day (which means we have to collect in the evening), what huge bird is circling above the trees (bald eagle!).

Let’s DO this

Probably the best part, though, is boiling the sap. There are six or seven little temporary sapping sheds up in Woodcrest now, with smoky fires and steam rising and collections of tasting spoons for passersby. It’s a place to stand and talk, young pyromaniacs can tend to the fire, and after several days of this all your clothes smell like smoke and you have maple syrup. (We’ll probably end up with 10 to 12 gallons, depending if it’s a good season this year.) Bring out skillets and fry pancakes and breakfast sausage, you can boil eggs in the boiling sap, and enjoy the sweet, sweet first fruits of the year.

Sapping shed and boiler with view of Catskill Mountains

“The trees of the Lord are full of sap.” Psalm 104:16

Recommendations

Norann

What I’m reading: Felicity, a dear friend in Sydney, sent me Gracelaced as a Christmas gift. It’s an unusually beautiful devotional by Ruth Chou Simons, which includes readings, questions, and reflections on God’s faithfulness through all seasons of life. Ruth’s artwork and calligraphy makes each page a wonder to ponder, and I’m savoring each chapter as the new year gets underway.

What I’m listening to: As someone who has always maintained a keen interest in corrections and prison reform (more on this in a future post), I’ve been deeply affected by the true-crime podcast The Letter. Unlike other podcasts of this genre, it carries profound themes of pain, reconciliation, and forgiveness.

Marianne

What I’m reading: Our family read-aloud right now is the entertaining and informative Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth, two of the twelve children of Lilian and Frank Gilbreth. This is a story about a big chaotic family and our medium-size chaotic family is enjoying it very much. So good.

What I’m listening to: The other thing our family listens to together is the entertaining and informative The Rest is History podcast with Tom Holland and Dominick Sandbrook. So good. (In fairness, four-year-old does not appreciate: “Can you turn Tom OFF?”)

Trudi

What I’m reading: I’m still on Elisabeth Elliot. This time her riveting biography, Do The Next Thing by Selah Helms. Explanation of the title alone would make a blog post. Excellent read.

What I’m listening to: A favorite album I grew up on: Tradition: Itzhak Perlman plays popular Jewish melodies. I have four large speakers that I found, dusted off, and wired up to an equally dusty but semi-functional four channel power amplifier. (Former owner of our property left a few old treasures here and there.) I have a new love for classical music when I hear it booming out of those speakers. Tradition is a must listen: each song laughs, dances, weeps, sighs, in one swirling wordless expression of life’s heartaches and joys.

And did you know

That you can sign up to Trudi’s personal substack for more updates on the community in South Korea? If you want to read (in German) about the two Bruderhof locations in Austria you can subscribe to Gemeinsam Leben by Aidan Manke.

And now, to end: a recipe!

contributed by Norann

This soup finds its way into my kitchen and onto our table multiple times during the colder months. It’s not fair that we can grow our own broccoli and limes here in Australia all winter long, but this recipe works with flash-frozen veggies just as well.

Cream of Broccoli Soup with Chili and Lime

In a pot with a sturdy base, brown a couple of crushed garlic cloves in a generous glug of olive oil or butter. Add several sturdy handfuls of broccoli florets and stir-fry. Sprinkle broccoli with a few chili seeds or slices (optional), and deglaze with two tablespoons (or more) of lime juice and a splash of dry white wine. When broccoli is fragrant, crunchy-tender, and bright green, pour in a cup of cream and two cups of milk.

Stir soup until hot but not boiling, and then adjust flavours with salt and pepper and chicken stock seasoning.

Serve soup with a crusty loaf for dipping.

Thanks for reading! Lent starts on February 22, so in our next post we’ll be writing about how we prepare for Easter, personally and in our communities. We’re also happy to answer any questions you may have.

Wishing you the best,

Trudi, Marianne, and Norann