Gifts, “stuff”, and God’s grace

In these last days before Christmas, some reflections on Santa Claus, gifts, and our culture.

The December 14th edition of the New York Times featured a twist on the tradition of Christmas wish lists. Once upon a time, kids wrote letters to “Santa Claus, North Pole,” detailing what they want for Christmas. That’s soooo pre-tech.

According to the Times, today’s kids are now sending Microsoft Power Point or Google Slides files detailing their wish lists. No longer might the little ones ask for a “doll.” Today’s kids ask for a “Reborn Baby Doll Saskia Replica, 20 inches with weighted cloth body.” The slides come complete with pictures to ensure Santa Claus (or his surrogates) does not get the wrong make or model. And, for your ease in fulfillment, QR codes and/or order links are conveniently attached.

In case the order—eh, I mean, “wish list”—is farmed out among multiple Santas, some youngsters have thoughtfully grouped their wants into categories including “clothes,” “jewelry,” “toys and games,” and so forth.

Obviously, many of these youths no longer believe in Santa. That bothers me a little, in the sense that these kids have lost the magical sense of a Christmas gift and have gone whole-hog consumer. Pretending to make a “Santa” list at least veiled some of the worst features of naked consumerism.

The Times’ report, of course, approves of the trend. The 13-year-old girl who produced the slide deck was applauded for her tech savvy skills and their adapted deployment to marketing that “resemble[s] corporate sales pitch. That young lady is now thinking of following it up with her birthday list. Her mother gushed, “’It made it a lot easier, so we weren’t guessing brands.’” The one downer note was her grandparents—not because they objected to the advertisement but because they were tech troglodytes. “’Can’t you just write this down?’” (Your granddaughter will print and email it).

Mom’s final quote in the article: “’She will get stuff from the list.’”

I guess it’s utilitarian. I guess it’s even efficient. What I don’t know is: is it a “gift?”

Or, as Mom characterized it, is it “stuff?”

Po-ta-to, po-tah-to?

I don’t think so. A gift, by its nature, is gratuitous. It often is a surprise. What is it about surprises that we often even pretend to be surprised?

Two things: the gift and the relationship. A surprise gift underscores the gratuity of a gift by at least feigning that it’s neither expected nor presumed upon. And, with a genuine surprise, a surprise gift often surpasses one’s expectations. That, too, is a good thing, because it teaches a certain modesty, restrains a certain grasping. And it says something about relationship, because not only is the “thing” a gift that is gratuitous, unexpected, and perhaps greater than what one hoped for or even imagined, but it comes with an “extra”–the relationship of the giver which hopefully embodies an even greater gift: love.

That’s a lot bigger than “stuff.”

Seen from that perspective, we lose much when gifts are cut down to the size of “stuff.” We can applaud this young lady’s tech skills. We may even have discovered her future college major in marketing.

But has she learned what is a gift? That she’s not necessarily “entitled?” That there is a greater frisson in a surprise than a fulfillment? That sometimes, that surprise might even be more wonderful and thrilling that your own narrow expectations?

After all, we can say all those things about the Gift given (Jn 3:16) that is the “reason for the season,” Jesus Christ.

Does she appreciate the gift of relationship that goes with the gift of “stuff?” How does one develop that appreciation when the giver is identified and treated basically as just the middleman between the recipient and Amazon? And, unless that appreciation of the relationship to the giver as giver is developed, isn’t the whole relationship distorted? The gravamen shifts from the giver to the “gift,” the giver by extension reduced primarily to the means by which the important thing—the thing—is obtained.

Now, in modern American society, how much practice do we get in actually receiving gifts? How much does our culture inculcate a sense of entitlement as opposed to one of gift?

And, absent the cultivation of that sense of gift in our secular lives, how do we expect it to develop in our spiritual lives? Because the latter is critical to Christian faith, which is rooted in the gift of grace (which, by its very etymology, is gratuitous) and ultimately in the gift of God in Jesus Christ.

I raise this question also in conjunction with the even older practice predating Google Slide Wish Lists: letters to Santa.

Once upon a time, we encouraged kids to send letters to Santa explaining “What I want for Christmas.” Wasn’t that a low-tech version of Power Point wish lists?

Perhaps not. Why not?

Because most of those letters preceded the wish list by the formula, “I was very good this year…..” (Or, “I wasn’t as good as I could have been this year, but I promise to be better…”)

I’m not seeing these computerized wish lists preceded by any self-assessment, much less an equally impressive slide show tally of one’s preceding year’s “good deeds.”

Now, such moral self-advertising has its own issues, both positive and negative. On the positive side, this formula modified the sense of entitlement: “I want X but I was a good boy” (as opposed to “I want X and, well, I’m me!”).

On the negative side, this approach somewhat reinforced the Pharisee’s notion of entitlement: because I was good, I would like a Red Ryder Model Air Rifle … or salvation.

One can hear in this echoes of a certain man who went up to the Temple: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I earn” (Lk 18:11-12).

Christianity, like Judaism, is unique in recognizing a moral component of man’s relationship to God: God is better, not just bigger or stronger. So, to be God’s image must occur primarily at the moral, spiritual level.

But that understanding can also degenerate into treating God as a contract partner: here are your 613 commandments, here’s what I’ve done, here’s my checklist good for one ticket to heaven.

God’s grace remains grace; it is a gift. We cannot lay claims on God. Our doing good is not something we can advance as a “claim” on God, because we “remain useless servants—we have done only what we were supposed to do” (Lk 17:10). Even the good we do is first of all God’s gift, the movement of His grace, because we cannot save ourselves.

So, to the degree that “letters to Santa” treat God as an exchange partner with whom we can bargain by our conduct—a mentality that can persist far beyond childhood—we might want to rethink the practice. That said, it’s still better than the raw, entitled consumer.

Having said that, perhaps we see even more the sense that the gifts we give at Christmas be gifts, in the sense that these temporal goods teach us to recognize and appreciate both the spiritual gifts and their Giver that is the heart of Christmas.

It’s not that God doesn’t want us to ask: “Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7). As Pope Francis observed, a child of God acts towards His Father like a human child to his father: “I need this, I would like this.”

But there is a subtle difference, the difference that comes from a child who recognizes all good things come from one’s Father who is ready to give His children what they need, even what they want. The child who recognizes “Thy will be done,” not “my will be done.” The difference that recognizes the importance of the gift … and the even greater importance of one’s relationship to Him who gives the gift.

In the closing paragraph of the classic short story, “The Gift of the Magi,” O. Henry comments on two things—a fob chain and combs—purchased at the price of what it a sense was neither exchangeable nor refundable. But the author recognizes that, more important than the gifts were the givers, and “these two were the wisest. …. They are the magi.”

May we all be wise men who recognize the treasure found in earthen vessels (II Cor 4:7) this Christmastide.