I'm embarrassed to confess that my four siblings and I had a largely happy and functional childhood.

My father and mother got most things right.

Included among "most things" was their encouragement--indeed, their expectation--that we express our love freely to family and friends and our gratitude to others for kindnesses received.

And, with respect to love and gratitude, my siblings and I got it mostly right.

Except with Uncle Guy and Aunt Lyda.

Uncle Guy and Aunt Lyda were my father's maternal aunt and uncle. They impressed this child as gracious and sophisticated. Guy and Lyda lived far away in West Plains, Missouri, but would periodically visit their family in Southern California. I loved to hear them tell stories of their home town. As a junior baseball historian, I was transfixed by their stories of grocery shopping in the West Plains market owned and operated by their friend "Preacher" Roe. Roe was one of the "Boys of Summer"--a pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s.

For several years, when we were very young, Guy and Lyda would send us crisp, uncirculated dollar bills enclosed in elegant Christmas folders--an oval die cut in the folder to allow the president's portrait to peer from the pocket. We were fascinated to compare our bills and discover their sequential serial numbers. "How did they do that?," we wondered. Oh, how we anticipated the day the postman would deliver our annual holiday gift!

For some reason, we seldom, if ever, wrote Uncle Guy and Aunt Lyda a thank you note. I remember rationalizing that stationery and postage would take a sizable bite out of their meaningful though modest gift. Surely, I reasoned, they would intuit the delight we felt for their kindness. My mother warned us one year that--unless we expressed our gratitude--Guy and Lyda might tire of casting their annual gifts into oblivion.

Okay, well, she didn't say it quite like that.

Sure enough, the year came when the gift didn't. We were disappointed. And a little hurt not to be remembered. And that's when I finally understood how Uncle Guy and Aunt Lyda must have felt when they, too, waited in vain by their mailbox.

The Apostle Paul made a startling observation of the ancients who rejected the natural revelation of God:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks... (Romans 1:20-21).

Imagine, among the most declarative ways of rejecting God is as simple as ingratitude.

When we give thanks, then, when we express gratitude--whether to God or neighbor--we acknowledge their presence, as well as their presents.

How well do you affirm the presence and presents of God and neighbor?

Is there anyone in your life who might be growing weary of casting their gifts into oblivion?

Where's the do-better place where you might better acknowledge the kindnesses of others?