The Slippery Slope: Tis the Season, 1 of 2

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4 Comments
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, there was a little backlash centered around stores that were open on Thanksgiving day or were requiring their employees to work on Thanksgiving in order to prepare for the Black Friday shoppers. Anthony Hardwick's situation gained a lot of notoriety as his online petition--"Tell Target to Save Thanksgiving"--generated enough negative publicity that Target decided they didn't need Mr. Hardwick's services on Thanksgiving. (On a side note, Target is Anthony Hardwick's second job!) 


I have never shopped on Black Friday, but it was never for moral reasons. That's not the case after this most recent Thanksgiving holiday. Our nation's desire to generate revenue and judge the goodness of things based their revenue-generating abilities is repulsive. Anthony Hardwick's story epitomizes how the pursuit of money makes people treat each other poorly. It's good for Black Friday shoppers to see and recognize the other side of all those "great" deals. From some perspectives, the deals are actually pretty sinister.


Now, it's December and capitalizing on the Christmas spirit is on full throttle. People are willing and ready to buy, so stores and merchants have been more than willing to accommodate the consumer. It's a time of selling. It's a time of buying. It's a time of lights and decorations. It's a time of warm cider and cookies. It's a time to give to...oneself. Tis the season.


Christmas giving is a strange giving (but let's face it, giving on any occasion for the citizens of the West is strange, but Christmas is the only occasion when such giving is named for God's Christ). Each Christmas I buy gifts for my family and friends, but what am I giving? When we give to our family, what are we giving? Or, perhaps better stated, to whom am I giving? I don't think I can buy anything for any member of my family that they couldn't buy for themselves. If I give a DVD, CD, iPod, cookbook, or whatever, I know that anyone to whom I would give these things could just as easily buy it themselves. I'm not giving anything to them. But, at Christmas we like to practice this type of giving. We buy things, wrap them and put them under the tree, and this is our gift to someone. We've always been told that Christmas is not about "getting" it's about "giving" but we always knew that really wasn't the case. Even the "giving" is about what we get from it.


The fact of the matter is, at Christmas we don't practice giving, we practice buying stuff for each other. All that stuff I bought for myself during January through November, well in December I'm going to buy that stuff for someone else. And, someone else is going to do the same for me. It's an exchange in consumerism, an exchange of materialism. We teach children that "if they're good" Santa will visit them and their reward for the goodness will be material possessions. Of course, I've never known any bad kids who didn't receive a visit from Santa, so I guess what is really taught is that no matter how a kid behaves, they deserve gifts at Christmas time. That is why I have to question, when parents give to their children at Christmas, what is it they are giving? What lessons are they giving to their kids? But, parents don't normally teach their kids giving (that's just my observation). I've never seen nor heard of parents using the Christmas season to teach their children about the self-sacrificial lifestyle. I think that parents give to kids at Christmas, I think they lavish toys upon their children, because of the joy the gifts bring to the kids. And, that joy is the gift to the parents. Giving is getting. Christmas is getting. Xmas.



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4 comments:

Clint Mongan said...

Good points Brian. It is easy, as a parent, to get caught up in this tradition because we do, in fact, enjoy seeing the joy that our kids get from the gifts we shower them with. It's unfortunate that, at the same time, we are training these little blank slates God has entrusted us with to believe that the greatest joy comes primarily from material aquisition of the things we so desire. We accompnany them to birthday parties throughout the year for their little friends, often taking them to Target or Walmart to pick out a toy for their friend; we see the careful thought and the joy they get from picking out that gift. It would probably be easy, and joyous, to carry that same practice into what we tell our children is Jesus' birthday. I have this idealistic (?) goal of gathering my children around the kitchen table, each with a World Vision catalog in hand and an "allowance" for Jesus' birthday present -- and them finding the same joy in picking out His present as they would get from my showering them with presents.

12/22/2011 03:08:00 PM
Brian said...

Thanks for reading, Clint. In my shocking conclusion, to be posted tomorrow, I actually mention World Vision as providing us with alternative ideas for giving during Christmas. One day, I'd like to do just what you describe during Christmas. We're not there quite yet, but I feel positive about the direction our family is headed.

12/22/2011 04:33:00 PM
Eddie Merkel said...

I am with you about the commercialism. It seems to be getting worse and worse as time goes by. I am only judging this by the rising Black Friday body count and casualty totals from Wal-Mart and other retailers, but that seems to me to be a valid metric.

I also understand your point about not being able to buy anyone anything they couldn't buy for themselves. This is certainly true. But you can buy something for someone that they would not buy for themselves. That is still fun, and there is nothing wrong with doing something you know will make someone happy. I know you are not saying that, just wanted to be explicit.

If the point is sacrifice; in the world we live in here in America we have very few opportunities to really sacrifice for our loved ones, though if it ever came to it I am sure we would all agree that sacrificing ourselves to save them in even the most dire situation would be as easy as breathing. The problem is things just don't get that dire.

If the point is that we have so much while others have so little, to me that is an all the time thing. So we have opportunity to do something about that all the year long. In that case Christmas really is no different, except perhaps to show how much alike we all are, how needy we all are in what is really important.

In the end I may not be one hundred percent clear on where I stand. I think gifts are fine, since the point of Christmas is about the first Christmas present ever. It's the spirit of the giving that is important, much more so than the gift I think.

Merry Christmas by the way!

12/23/2011 08:09:00 AM
Brian said...

Thanks for your comments, Eddie. And Merry Christmas to you, too.

I'm not what I feel about Christmas. And, I don't really mean to insinuate that the giving of gifts at Christmas is contrary to the spirit of Christ or the Christmas season. I think it's fine to give gifts to people who don't need us to give to them. Still, I find myself struggling with my own abundance and the insignificance of my giving to make any difference.

Lately, I've become fascinated with the concept of relational tithe, which suggests that poverty in the U.S. shouldn't be viewed as a lack of resources or education, but a lack of relationships (http://youtu.be/RGSvDvDZnb4). But, then I wonder if I really have it in me to be engaged in those type of relationships.

Like you, I'm not 100% sure where I stand, even thought I probably write with a lot more certainty that what I really have. I do know, though, that I wish retail outlets had greater respect for the holidays, and not necessarily for the sanctity of Christianity or anything like so much as the sanctity of human beings. It's just good to give workers time off to spend with their family, even if it inconveniences the rest of us [we?] consumers.

12/23/2011 09:28:00 AM

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