Best Spiritual Christmas gifts and Top Religious Holiday Presents 2012

I've made quite a few pages on Wizzley by now, and it is time to gather them together by topic. On this page you find my spiritual gift suggestions - all very suitable for Christmas or birthdays.

Christian gift ideas for Christmas

Let's start with the religion I might have grown up in: Christianity. My grandfather was a minister, as was his dad. His grandfather was a rather well known theologian.

My mom however became an agnostic and that peculiar kind of trade that's so close and yet so far from being a minister: a therapist. I grew up as the daughter of both a therapist and a mathematician.

You can perhaps imagine that this meant us growing up thinking for ourselves. Little did my parents realize that as I grew up I'd actually come back to those religious roots...

When it comes to Christian Christmas gifts, I fondly remember the idea of an advent calendar, though  I can't be sure we had one in our house. I do think we had one at my grandmother's house, where we unfailingly celebrated Christmas.

Judaism is of course the one religion in Europe that's both familiar and alien. Familiar because it's been around in Europe for centuries. Alien because it was not 'us'.

Since I grew up after world war 2, I grew up in a country with few Jews left: those who weren't killed generally emigrated to the USA or Israel or assimilated.

However, both my brothers had a Jewish friend growing up, so I did learn about their faith first hand. I distinctly remember the seperate fridges one of the two families had. 

With Islam there is another family connection: my grandfather, though a Christian minister by calling, became an expert on Islam later in life. He even became a professor of Islamology at Leiden university.

Now we come to my own interests: yoga is part of what we might call 'alternative spirituality' in the West today. I've done a bit of yoga here and there: as part of summer schools and seminars, and even a regular weekly class for a few months.

Yoga is the kind of exercise that helps one stay grounded and balanced. However, I find it makes a lot of difference who teaches it.

Here are some suggestions for Yoga Gifts for Christmas.