Just a couple of things to add to my earlier post:
(1) Someone mentioned The 12 Days. Yes, I used to do that, too, particulalry when our children were small. Children easily get carried away with the breathless materialism of it all: if they are given all of their gifts at once (on The Day), it can be overwhelming. It teaches them patience and moderation to spread out 12 gifts over 12 days. (Can work for any age, but particularly memorable & impression-making for children.)
(2) In the tradition of my parents, my siblings and I, (especially I:blush
became accomplished at the art of Stuffing Stockings. Special, unusual, rare, or particularly personal items, small enough for a stocking, became an art. What that does is slow people down. People linger over the smaller items, and sometimes even say: ‘I don’t need to go any further; I’m content with my stocking gifts.’ It gets people talking thoughtfully as they open the next wonderful small surprise; it gets people to appreciate the smaller, more hidden aspects of their own lives, and it puts a halt to the frenzy and particularly the over-trumpeted grandiosity.
(3) Remember that tomorrow (Saturday) is Independent Retailers day – a day to patronize the opposite of the massive chain and big-box store industries. That also helps to dampen down the mania, because buying is not on a grand scale, and the shopping requires thoughtfulness. For my own birth family, the thoughtfulness behind the gift – the work going into discovering the perfect “answer” or surprise for a loved one – has always been the most important element of gift exchange. Then opening the gift became an opportunity for all gathered to affirm out loud the sincerity and ingenuity of the gift-giver. Often the challenge has been to succeed in that despite limited cash, so the ratio of success to cash was the quotient most prized. It never became a competition, only an anticipation. And that became an opportunity to get to know each other better and to appreciate each other more.
(4) Another protest against commercialism is to convert material gifts into non-material. Remember when you were little, and you didn’t have much of an allowance to grace every relative’s event with cash? So on Mother’s Day & Father’s Day you gave coupons (labor “gift-cards”): ‘good for 3 lawn-mowings,’ etc. Giving a gift of recreating with someone else’s children, or bringing dinner over on a selected day – or treating them to a museum day that they would not attend by themselves, or even helping them clean up a garage or a yard. The idea is the keeping of company and the gift from the heart. It’s the gift of
self that is the most priceless gift.
(5) There have been years when one, or more than one family member was suffering financially. In those cases we have often said. ‘No gifts will be exchanged,’ or “only food gifts.” Then it becomes fun because it’s themed and everybody can participate. (My whole family loves to cook and/or buy food gifts. Those who couldn’t cook would look for that one, “perfect” but not expensive food gift that suited the taste and personality of the recipient the most (like the stocking stuffers).
What happened this year across the country at 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., etc. does not bear any vague resemblance to the birth event in ancient Bethlehem.
