Or can you? Kyla Scanlon’s post The Cost of Love got me thinking. What got her thinking was the old, silly little song, The Twelve Days of Christmas. She did what she does and I do what I do. We both analyze things, but in a different way. The song was composed (must have been) during the time of kings. Because who else could command, control, and deliver lords to leap, maids to milk, swans to swim, ladies to dance, drummers to drum, etc. and so on.
Such a thing would not be possible today, with the exception perhaps in the UK, where kings and queens can still do those sorts of things, I suppose? So who are the king and queen equivalents today? Why the billionaires, of course. Of which at last count there were 4,000.
Let’s suppose you, or I, were one. Moreover, what then would your twelve gifts be? To your True Love. Furthermore, if you were the True Love, the receiver, what twelve gifts would you want? That was my approach to analyzing the song. Money now replacing command and control over people and things. Because servitude (slavery) has been outlawed. And for the new kings and queens, money is no barrier to giving.
The Tool
I devised is the following list of twenty-eight potential gifts I thought were of great value. The idea, or game, is to choose only twelve of the twenty-eight; both as giver and receiver. And also to rank order them from one to twelve. One being the most precious, or valuable.
It helped me to think of a real person as my True Love. Therefore making my choices easier. My True Love is a she. So she would be a giver to me, and I the giver to her. Of course some gifts require additional expenditure, which would be covered by the giver. There is no cost whatsoever to the receiver. Below is the device:
How to Play
There are two columns between the categories and the 28 gifts. One is for the giver (me) and the other for the receiver (she). Label them. Then peruse the 28 gifts putting a check mark in the appropriate column if that gift appeals to you for the person identified. I wound up with fifteen gifts in each column for me and my True Love.
Then I thought more, deeper, about the gift and the person. How independent are we? What might we already have? How resourceful? In other words, got very specific regarding the other’s personality, and struck through some items to get to twelve.
This process also allowed me to better consider the rank order of gifts.
This really is a compatibility test
when I thought more about it. Or, how well do you know your True Love?
If you are daring enough? What you can do is copy and download the above? game sheet. Then print two copies, and select and order the twelve gifts for you and your True Love. And then compare. Maybe you have found your true love? Maybe not. Or maybe … love can be bought?
My completed game sheet
It was fun! Of course, there is no my True Love at the moment. But there were from time to time. Is this a composite? My perfect true love? Hard to say, truly.
The Five Languages of Love
posits that Gifts represent a “love language”. Or how people perceive what love is. The other four are Service, Touch, Quality Time, and Verbalization. For me, gift giving was the least important language. Some, Teal Swan specifically, think it is of most importance. This being Christmas and the season of giving – she’s posted several videos on YouTube about giving.
I think love and happiness are intertwined with other things of health and well being. Because life on this planet is very complicated, especially here now in 2020.
True Love
has gotten harder, not easier, with the passage of time. I think it was probably simpler and easier, in the time of kings. For one, far fewer choices. Furthermore …
