Our minister last Sunday was talking about our blessings. It reminded me about the nature of our modern-day Christmas and the sometimes excessive gifting of presents. Not everyone gets sucked into that tradition but for all of us, it’s a good reminder. We seem to just slide into the habit of giving “too much.” having promised last Christmas to “control” our buying this year. We try to monitor what we are buying, but it’s fun to give something as a surprise, to the family particularly. Maybe we had a “good year” and feel that we need to share our fortunate situation. Frequently, the “too much” aspect of giving just creeps up on us and isn’t apparent until all the packages are open on Christmas Day. And it is fun to watch the faces of kids and grandkids as they open that really special game or latest model computer they really didn’t expect. I suppose that some of the excess giving is just a mis-step, beyond what you usually give. There are lots of reasons we slip into the area of “excess gifting” and I don’t intend at all to be someone pointing the finger of “shame-on-you.”
One observation our minister made was the importance of trying to balance all this with special efforts at community service. Frequently, churches provide special holiday suppers for the indigent served by parish members. Bringing your children and grandkids to the event is a good way to remind them of the simple needs of others. Then the family opening of gifts is undertaken against this back-drop of those needs.
The homeless pull at our hearts especially hard this time of year. It’s cold now and sometimes we’re in the middle of a hard winter freezing rain and snowstorm. Where do these folks sleep? Do they have tough cold-weather-storm coats? Their kids -- they are aware of the gifting to kids but their own stockings are only half full, or worse, or by perhaps being loaded with cheap plastic jim-cracks. It is a time for parents to teach, to explain, to reach out, to bring to our own families a sense of balance and a joy that we might be able to ease the difficulties, and yes, perhaps, their pain, by simply reaching out and by assuring our families that others don’t “have it as good” as we might and bring a sense of participation by the family in service to others not so fortunate.
Surely, our Program calls us to serve others. There are special needs, always. Several years ago, on Christmas day I was sitting around our son’s home in Denver feeling sorry for myself, grinding away on some issues which could not be solved that day but which could lead me to that slippery slope. So, I spent much of the day at an AA club house. There, I knew I couldn’t get into trouble. I spent most of the time talking to a rancher from Wyoming who drove to the city in his pickup and “just needed a place to talk to people.” Tons of folks were present and that meant a need for folks to bring a lot of coffee and cookies and cakes, to clean up, lead discussion sessions, and talking to that new person who had no other place to go, having lost his family and his self-respect but stumbles into the club house.
Christmas is a joyous time of celebration of the birth of our Savior, but it’s also a time to remember our good fortune and, following the importuning of the Twelve Steps, use it responsibility to reach out to others, including our families.
JRA, ST X Noon, Cincinnati
