A Great Gift

The giving and receiving of gifts is so much a part of the Christmas season as to almost be synonymous with it. Ask any child and you will be told that Christmas means getting presents.

I cannot remember where I read or heard it, but immediately I accepted it as truth: "One can give and not love, but one cannot love and WITHOUT GIVING." Love is no abstract matter. It needs to be demonstrated---to find expression in gifts. The gift need not be of the material kind, but where real love exists, giving always results.

One of the best gifts my wife ever gave our daughter was the ritual of a nightly "tuck in." Every night my wife would go into our daughter's bedroom and tuck her in and have mother-daughter conversation before sleep. Long after our daughter was grown and gone from home, she would ask for the ritual of the "tuck in" when she returned for a visit.

Gifts are not always positive, however. Sometimes, like the apple given to Snow White by her step-mother, they have poison in them. Gifts that (1) flatter the pride of the giver, (2) express the preference of the parent for one child over another, (3) are given conditionally, (4) are given to dominate and control, (5) are given as a "sin offering" to avoid saying "I'm sorry," all have poison in them.

Sometimes I hear folk speak of Christmas shopping as though it were a trip to the dentist for a root canal---an unpleasant task that had to be done. Something is wrong here. Gifts which are required...expected...conventional...impersonal will cancel the relationship between giving and loving for both the giver and the recipient.

Great gifts do two things: (1) they fulfill the desires of the recipient and (2) they reflect the person of the giver. You will know you have given a "great gift" when the recipient is heard to say, "That is just what I wanted - needed," and "Isn't that just like him/her to give such a gift?"

This Christmas I wish for you and your family the unadulterated joy that comes from giving and receiving - of loving and being loved.