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Sunset on Thanksgiving

11/25/2015

 

Sunset on Thanksgiving


Dear old and new friends, 

     Once upon a time Thanksgiving was to celebrate the end of a good harvest and that barns and fruit cellars were full, insuring there would be enough to eat through the coming winter. Today’s Thanksgiving signals not the end but the beginning of the harvest season for merchants whose customers will spend roughly 70% of the American gross domestic product on Christmas gifts. These gift sales are critical since they determine merchants’ annual profit and that of our national economy. The nation’s treasury and merchants pray that, in spite of terrorist threat, the old adage “Shoppers keep shopping” will be true this year.

     Yet we and our children already have all if not more than we need; so why buy more? And why does the celebration of Christmas or Hanukkah require giving gifts of things we don’t really need? Wait…did you hear it? That tiny voice saying, “Now Hays, don’t turn into a Scrooge and ruin our coming merry holidays.” I won’t! Yet I wish to help us explore why we do what we do and to offer some other options. We give gifts now because the ancient Romans found the winter weeks to be dark and dreary, so they celebrated Saturnalia on December 17th in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. During December’s cold, long and dark nights, this feast lifted their spirits by drinking and partying to excess. The Romans also exchanged token gifts and candles, and gifts of fruit and nuts.

     The coming of Christianity didn’t convert the climate of dark cold weather, but in the 4th century Christians converted the sinful pagan feast of Saturnalia into the light festival of the birth of Jesus, and kept the old Roman custom of giving gifts. Giving gifts at Christmas time then is a beautiful nearly four thousand year and older tradition well worth keeping. Also, our spirits are lifted with a lights festival in winter’s darkness by illuminating our town and houses with endless strings of festive-colored lights. I have a friend who puts up “inside” his home strings of countless colored Christmas lights. He turns off all other lights and loves to sit meditatively in their glittering grandeur as if at the center of a galaxy. Now there’s a wonderful tradition; turn off the other lights in your home and spend quality time lost in childlike wonder in the magical presence of your lighted Christmas tree.

     For a spouse or family member, instead going to a store for a gift, go around your home and find an old souvenir from some memorable vacation with them. Wrap it in Christmas paper and put it under the tree, and when the person opens it reminisce with them about the good times of that trip. Or recycle a cherished gift by symbolically wrapping it in holiday paper and giving it back (temporally) to the person(s) who had thoughtfully given it to you, telling them how all these years it has been such a keepsake. God help the merchants this year to survive, and even make a profit…but let us not add to the glut of our too-much-of-everything consumerism.

     Finally, while shopping is like a sedative and consumerism the opiate of the masses, we often buy gifts we can’t afford for people who have too much already. It is estimated that one-third of our holiday buying still remains unpaid for two months after Christmas! We also buy stuff people don’t need or even like, as it is estimated 18% of holiday presents (worth a staggering $12 billion) are never worn or used.

     John D. Rockefeller, Sr., the multimillionaire (in today’s dollars a multi-billionaire), learned he was to be gifted in the early 1900’s by his children with an electric car to enable him to easily ride around his vast estate. His response? “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather have money."
Dan
11/30/2015 11:18:11 am

Dear Ed,

I think it is fair to say that we can throw cold water on our out of control consumerism while still respecting Christmas. Unfortunately many of us cannot disconnect the two. As members of a capitalist society we have all been brainwashed in some way to think we need things we really don’t need. It is so ever present around us that we don’t even know it is happening.

We also do not realize the dangers of over consumption, one of which is the risk to our “limited” natural resources. Our own Holy Father knows and warns us: “There are constant assaults on the natural environment, the result of unbridled consumerism, and this will have serious consequences for the world economy,”

Perhaps the greatest gift we can give this Christmas as well as any other time, is to leave some of creation for our descendents. Imagine where saying “no” can actually be a gift and a very valuable one at that. Not jumping in your car in multiple trips for every little thing is actually a gift.

Ed, you have some wonderful ideas for alternative gift giving that does not involve consumption. There are so many other possibilities if one just sits back and not only thinks about this but also commits to not tapping into our world’s limited natural resources. One place to always look for a gift is to consider that has already been given to us. We receive many gifts each and every day. We will never realize this unless we first examine and express our gratitude for those gifts. Plus they do not become true gifts until we share them with others. We should realize that most of us already have too much and we should realize there are those who are not like us and who have very little.

If we feel we really must buy something new as a gift, then let it be something useful and something that is a need and not a want. When I stopped believing in Santa is when I stopped getting toys and instead got underwear.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Gift Giving - Dan

Dick S.
12/1/2015 07:42:48 am

Dan,
While I concur with most of your comments, I take issue with the last paragraph. For me at least, there is something in the nature of gift-giving that eschews the practical. I learned that early in my marriage when I bought my wife a vacuum cleaner. I've been impractical ever since - and I really like how it feels (Santa-like). Just my thoughts.

Dan S.
12/2/2015 12:26:05 pm

Dear Dick,

Ha! I would NOT advice giving the wife a vacuum cleaner for Christmas, as practical of a gift as that might be! It actually is a very selfish gift because what it might as well have written all over it, “Here keep the house clean for me, OK?” Most certainly not a good gift idea.

I hear you about being Santa and coming up with the spontaneous and even nonsensical gift that expresses deepest love. There is nothing wrong with that as long as it is not extravagant and excessive. The true meaning of the gift is not its value but the depth of love behind it, and that is what will be remembered.

The comment on the underwear was intended to be a joke, but at the same time there was a hidden truth. Of all the Christmas gifts I received as a child I do not remember any of the toys. I also remember other family members who kept giving more and more (very expensive) toys to children (because it was what they wanted) and those toys ended up in closets – some never opened. Parents had the fall sense of thinking they were expressing love by giving kids what the children wanted at the time. The first time I got underwear and other clothes rather than toys, I was so disappointed. No toys, no nothing I wanted! Just (stupid) clothes. Now when I look back I realize that was a very difficult time for my parents when they had little or no money. They made a sacrifice to get me something and was actually something I “needed” (not wanted) very badly. There was probably more love felt behind those gifts of clothes than behind any of the toys.

Happy gift giving whatever you choose to do; and it will be happier the deeper you dig into your heart than your pocket book.

Dan S.


Comments are closed.


    Edward Hays


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