Ponderosa High School has a well-financed campus, nice, crisp, clean classrooms and an aura that screams comfort. But does it also scream love and acceptance? Do we honor that more than anything else?

The student body generally lives in a non-poverty filled environment, with hopes of gifts for the holidays. But would they trade that all for nothing else, but the insurance of a loving home or another heart to share compassion with in this cold season?

Ponderosa put the importance of love to the test with a question; would you rather receive gifts or love for the holiday season? Love may over-rule the question at hand but, how accurate is it? Can we really say as a high school that our student body cherishes more than the normal lavish gifts and expensive hot items on the market place? The answer can be yes if love stays true and is given and received from both parties.

“Love is something that will stay with you for the rest of your life” said senior Dan Emery.

Is a mother’s caress more powerful then a diamond ring? Does love count more then a thousand dollars’? Love, the thing that one may seek for an eternity and may never find versus the material possession that some say can tear the world apart is an aged old battle. The complicated question that “Is a gift love, or is love something separate in itself?” can rattle one’s brain till it snaps.

A deception that I feel plaques us as a society is that gifts are the true lubricant of love in the sense of material possessions. This can only be true if the giver is not expecting or hoping for anything in return, but the happiness of the receiver, knowing full well that love was always there to begin with.

“Gifts are love, we’re in America” said senior Jameson Savage.

As a nation we dance back and forth trying to find that perfect gift, to either receive or to give for the holiday season. With hellish days such as “Black Friday” when all the sales hit the stores only for the special occasion of materialistic demands, we can see the power behind objects.

“The pressures of society make it hard for us not to give gifts to our friends and family,” said junior Jessica Chord.

There is no question of whether gifts are good or bad. The question is, should love be weighed by the size of your pocket book? Does love stay with you because the gifts keep coming or should love settle within forever, because of nothing else, but the love itself?

The possibility to give automatically begs the question, will you give and why will you give? Does the giving of gifts create the ability of receiving love and in turn you are giving yourself love. If you do not give the gifts are you not worthy of love? Would giving more to receive more love be considered selfish or is that just the way it works? To give is to receive, if you give love you will receive love.





Bill Gates, the head-man to Microsoft has in recent years, with his wife Melinda, established the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help fight poverty and improve health care and education around the world. With a $29 billion endowment, it is the world's largest charity. The foundation has donated about $5 billion to developing nations to fight AIDS and malaria, two of its major areas of concentration. Its vaccination programs in poor countries are credited with saving at least 700,000 lives.

Gifts of this nature come from the heart; there is no question of that. But did they buy the love that they will receive from this large charity? Some may argue yes, because isn’t this weighing love by the dollar? I think what weighs love more then anything else is the time spent to create that love. Anyone can sign a check so you can sleep better at night, but to actually pull that money from your heart and make sure its going to the right place, that’s true love.

I do believe Ponderosa High School can agree that love is the greatest gift of them all, because that’s what this world needs out of anything else.