The Christmas Virtues by Jonathan V. Last

Author:Jonathan V. Last
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Templeton Press

Christmas gift giving, or at least its origin, dates to Roman times. The Christian tradition combines the story of the Magi, who brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the newborn Christ, with the lore surrounding St. Nicholas, a mischievous fourth-century secret gift-giver who was the well-loved bishop of Myra.

Long before the United States and its army of plastic Santas hit the scene, Christmas in Europe involved giving gifts to strangers more than children—bands of lower-class men would go door to door, “wassailing,” requesting handouts from the upper class. It took good old America to transform Christmas into the merchandising juggernaut it is today.

For many people these days, particularly in America, Christmas comes with a peculiar challenge: As a parent, you want to give your children lots of good gifts, but you also don’t want to turn your children into jerks. Each year, my sons collect toys for Operation Christmas Child, which sends boxes of presents to poor children around the world, and the Angel Tree project, which sends gifts to kids with imprisoned parents. I have friends who limit their children to three gifts because, as they explain, that was good enough for Jesus. This seems like a wonderful concept, and every December I think, This is the year we’re going to pull it off! But alas, every year, I slip up. Because giving gifts, it turns out, is really fun. And giving Christmas gifts to kids is the most fun of all.

As a child I remember waking up while it was still dark, giddy. My brother and I would race to find our stockings and without fail, there would be an orange in each of them. I would grab mine, set it aside, and then, as often as not, forget all about it. In the 1950s, when my parents opened their stockings in icy Iowa and Michigan, that orange was a rare winter treasure. For my mom, who grew up poor on a farm, it was sometimes the only Christmas present she received. For my dad, a Dutch immigrant, it was usually paired with some chocolate and maybe one other present, if he was lucky. Those oranges were, like the British toddler’s onion, bits of magic on a cold, blustery day.

It’s a lovely thing, then, to see the joy that small gifts still bring to kids. For my three boys, last year’s Christmas list included requests for “seeds,” a “calider” (that would be a calendar), a “red teeshert,” and an “ant farm.” There were a few extravagant requests, too—a Power Wheels, which is one of those kid-sized cars that actually works when you hit the gas, and “a blue lightsaber, but a real one, like the one that cut off Luke Skywalker’s hand.” On the whole, though, I deemed my offspring to be a reasonable bunch.

They did not, by the by, get a Power Wheels, a working light-saber, or an ant farm. Also, as a public service announcement, please do not ever give any of my children a Power

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.