The best and worst thing about Christmas is gifts.
Best, because Christmas is all about giving.
Worst, because choosing a gift for my wife is like having root canal surgery. Now, I’m not slandering dentists. I’m not saying they are all twisted sadists who enjoy inflicting pain. I think they’re just deluded about what constitutes pain. Plus they have this compulsive obsession to shove everything into your mouth except the sink and then ask you lots of questions.
Don’t get me wrong. I love dentists as people. Just not as dentists.
Anyway, back to finding suitable gifts for my wife.
We reached the stage where she always reminded me: “Don’t forget, whatever you buy, keep the receipt and credit card slip!” She eventually told me she would buy herself her own gifts from me. Where’s the romance in that?
So I hit on the bright idea of giving her something we both could use. This only provoked her to go around the house singing: “For the fourth Christmas running, my true love gave to me: one wheelbarrow, one pick axe, two dog collars, and a cutlass just to tempt me.”
Well, you get the picture.
I’ve tried writing her a love poem and baking her a chocolate soufflé (both equal disasters). But I refuse to give up. For what would Christmas be without gifts? In fact, Christmas is the greatest gift of all.
God gave us Jesus to show us that love is the essence of life, and giving without expectation of return is the essence of love.
What could be simpler?
To drive home the point, Jesus had these constant arguments with the Scribes and Pharisees about the letter of the law and the spirit of love that is the whole point of the law. He showed us how being obsessed with the trees (the law) can lead us to stop seeing the wood (love). If love does not animate the rules and regulations, they are worthless.
So what did we do? We killed Him.
Then, having killed Him, we honoured his memory and message by setting up a proliferation of petty rules and regulations, not designed to make us love better, but to ensure that we, like spoilt brats, get rewarded and not punished in the hereafter. In our selfish quest to save ourselves, we not only become filled with hatred of the unclean and fear of the outsider, but we also ignore Jesus’ basic message of love and gratuitous giving.
Don’t we get it? It’s all about the here and now, not the hereafter.
Yet, despite our pig-headed refusal to heed the message, the spirit of love and giving still prevails at Christmas: the humblest home you visit will offer some food or drink; strangers stop and help those in trouble; people open their hearts and wallets to the needy.
As Scrooge proved fictionally, you can always be redeemed by the spirit of Christmas.
Some claim that Christmas has become too secular and commercialised. Bah, humbug. Shopping for Christmas is fun.
Would we really prefer to be back in Cromwell’s England, when the Puritans banned all Christmas celebrations? They decreed instead a day of fasting and prayer. No roast goose, no Christmas tree, no carols, no plum pudding, and definitely no was sailing.
Let’s face it: the Puritans were a bunch of gloomy killjoys.
So don’t be a Scrooge: have a joyous and “gift-ful” Christmas.
Christmas is a time to give thanks for all the gifts we have received. For me the greatest are a wife who puts up graciously with the fun I poke at her in this column, and a son who was born on Christmas Day and is the light of my life.
Hey, I know what I’ll get her: the complete works of Aristotle. But, don’t tell her. Please!
Peter Laurie is a retired diplomat and a commentator on social issues. Email plaurie@caribsurf.com