This Story About The Nicest Christmas Present Ever Received Has The Internet In Tears | 22 Words

Dear friends, 'tis once again the season. That time of the year when people gather together in remembrance of those things most important to the American psyche – family, friends, and sheer, unmitigated capitalism. Christmas is the multinational corporation's most favored holiday, and for good reason. Americans spend more during the period between Thanksgiving and New Years Eve than they do any other time of the year.

Even before Thanksgiving has wiped the cold turkey grease off its lips, businesses begin advertising specials, offerings and other cold-blooded ploys to get you into their stores or online platforms so they can wring the very last dollar out your hide

But all this capitalism with a capital C isn't all what Christmas is about. Sometimes, its the little things.

What's the most precious gift you've ever received?

Most people can remember theirs almost immediately. Odds are, it isn't the most expensive gift you've even received, or the impressive. It's the one that spoke to your heart and made you feel most loved.

That's the thing about gifts, you see.

The ones that are most precious to us are the ones that invoke the most feelings. Maybe they remind us of a special time or a place we once went to. Oftentimes, they remind us that the person who gave us the gift really cared, because they found or bought this precious item knowing specially what you loved.

The best gifts stick with us long after they've gone.

Even after you've worn all the fuzziness off that prized bear, or sipped the last drop of that merlot – you know, the one your hubby had to go all the way to France for – you can always remember what it felt, smelled or tasted like.

Just the thought of it can put a smile on your face.

Depending on the particular poignancy of the gift, it can even bring tears to your eyes and make you go back to the exact place you were when you first got that gift. It's like smelling your favorite fragrance – just one whiff can take you back.

One woman reminded us of this when she posted a thread to Twitter this weekend.

She spoke about the best gift she'd ever gotten, the details surrounding which had most of the internet (and us) grabbing a tissue and crying along.

Hayley Webster, a writer from Norfolk, England, went on Twitter this Sunday to share her most poignant Christmas story.

As of this posting, the thread has over 50,000 likes, and for good reason. It brought us all back to a time when Christmas meant a whole much more.

If you read the details of the story, it's actually sort of horrifying.

The parents, at a close reading, are caricatures of every callous, removed parent in a children's book you ever read. There's the absenteeism – posh seeming British-isms aside, a close read of this illuminates the fact that the mother isn't necessarily there for her children.

Think about it. Here is this little girl taking care of her little sister.

She makes lunch and breakfast for her sister and ensures that her sister has an amazing Christmas complete with "elves." And the father is just as bad as the mother, because where is he while his daughter is doing all this?

There's also the casual mention of alcoholism.

What kind of parents get drunk together and vomit or get "sick" on their child's school bag? There's multiple layers of wrong happening here.

Which is why the girlfriend's actions are so right.

For her to notice that this little girl is going through all this, and to make sure she let's her know that she's appreciated– *Oh, God, there we go, crying again.* But if there's one thing this thread does, is it reminds us – the spirit of Christmas is not about buying expensive things and giving the most enormous gifts. It's being there for the ones you love and showing that you care.