In looking for a small Christmas gift for you, all I found was a summer memory.
On cold winter days, it will warm you to recall your own summer days, especially those from your childhood. 
The other day, my wife and I found blackberries at the market. They had to come from the Southwest or Florida, I thought.
The package label read “Product of Mexico.” I bought them anyway.
The oven heat ought to kill anything that might be harmful, I told myself. 
The berries reminded me of my mother’s cobblers. In the summer, she often asked us to go out into the woods to gather blackberries. They were abundant and she would promise to bake a cobbler pie.
Sometimes she would go with my sister and me but didn’t like the thorns. She knew we loved them, especially in her pies.
Once in the North Carolina mountains, we spotted a row of blackberry bushes along the road. We begged our parents to stop and let us pick them. Our father stopped the car and we all piled out.
“Can we put them in you hat,” our mother asked our father.
“Sure,” he agreeably replied.
It was a hot day and it didn’t take long to fill up his straw hat.
He loved that hat. It protected the scalp under his thinning hair from the sun.
The blackberries, of course, stained it. He laughed and threw the hat away.
To make your own blackberry cobbler, here is an easy recipe we use. It will take 15 minutes to make and an hour to cook. The best thing is that it makes 8 servings. 
1 stick butter, melted, plus a bit more to grease the baking dishes
2 cups of white sugar 
1 cup of brown sugar 
2 cups self-rising flour
2 cups milk
4 cups fresh (or frozen) blackberries
Vanilla ice cream or whipped cream
Preheat oven to 350º F. Grease two 2-quart baking dishes with butter.
Rinse the blackberries in a colander and shake off moisture. In a medium bowl, whisk 2 cups white sugar with flour and milk. Whisk in the melted butter.
Pour batter into baking dish. Place blackberries evenly over the top of the batter. Sprinkle 1 cup brown sugar over the top. 
Bake until golden brown and bubbly, about 1 hour. Serve warm, topped with ice cream or whipped cream.
My father was a philosopher. Not a professional one but a philosopher nonetheless.
“I can always buy another hat,” he said. “I will always remember the fun we had picking the berries together.”
That was a great life lesson for me. It was years later that I understood his meaning.
Too often we put too much value on material things. They last only a little time.
It’s the affection we feel for each other and the memories we create together that last us a lifetime.
This Christmas I hope you will spend time creating memories with those you love. 
Years from now, when you become as old and grey as I am, you will look back on those memories fondly. You will find them more precious than any hats or other things we tend to value too much.