Merry Christmas, Folks!

so i went to Midnight Mass tonight(thinking,"enh. what the hell?"). fr. mike gave an interesting homily(how i know this is a complete miracle, because between the incense and the fact that i was fucking tired, i was about to fall asleep.) anyway, he talked about needing to be a recipient instead of a giver in order to receive christmas. not exctly the take i've seen before, and it entirely goes against the idea of giving presented by so many christmas stories, such as a chirstmas carol.
part of the whole idea was to be humble, like the christ shild himself. he talked about how humble we all were as infants. and one thing i kept thinking throughout the homily was how much i was starting to be a giver. how much i am starting to pull away from receiving, from my parents. how independant i'm becoming, and how much farther i have to go. a lot of this, shall we say, maturity , doesn't have a lot to do with being able to stand on my own, just with being able to see both sides, being able to contradict them with decent reason. i thought about this as i toyed with my new ring......
so, which are you? giver or recipient?
either way, merry christmas.