One Small Voice: Buy Christmas presents? Bah Humbug!

Fifty-two years ago, Lucy VanPelt, of Peanuts fame, confided to Charlie Brown that Christmas is run by a big eastern syndicate. Before Charles Schultz, writer of Peanuts, put those words in Lucy’s mouth in the script of “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” my own mother was saying the same thing to her daughters.

(She said that the same eastern syndicate was responsible for manufactured Hallmark holidays like Sweetest Day, Secretaries Day and Bosses Day. She was a bit cynical that way.)

About the same time, a radio comedian/songwriter/adman named Stan Freberg was writing radio shows out in California, panning, among other things, the commercialism of Christmas. His parody of Christmas (called “Green Christmas” (1958), and searchable on YouTube) was a biting satire that even holds up today. Schultz, Freberg and my Ma were all lamenting the crass commercialization of one of Christians’ most sacred holy days.

Fifty-plus years ago!  I’m a little late to the party, but I’ve become a secret Scrooge, hypocritically ringing those old jingle bells while silently cursing the ring of the cash register.

Each holiday season we are reminded that “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Yet merchants keep moving back the date on which the pre-holiday sales begin, and when the stores get decorated for Christmas. Speaking as an old fart who pines for simpler, less mercenary times, BAH, HUMBUG!

Do I feel disdain for the celebration of the birth of Christ? Only to the degree that it has become less about the man born to save humankind, and too much more about the black, bottom line for producers and merchandisers of schlock and tchatchkes that we don’t need or want. Products that clutter our houses and collect dust until our space constraints make these things the items we donate to Goodwill or add to the mountains of landfill that bespatter our landscapes.

It’s a real shame, in my opinion, that we have come to measure the success of Christmas by the amount of money we spend on our families or the number of gifts we place under the Christmas tree. It’s sad that we measure love and esteem for our coworkers, colleagues, teachers and neighbors by the trinkets with which we gift them.  

In the simpler times about which I wax sentimental, when my parents were young and money was short, my mother would spend evenings throughout the year making doll clothes for the one or two dolls each of us, me and my two sisters, owned. The clothes were beautiful.

I don’t know where she found such beautiful fabrics in such tiny quantities at such cheap prices, but she made magical, frilly dresses and “velvet” coats, hats and muffs for them. Bridal gowns and skating outfits. Sunsuits and rompers and Bermuda shorts. Pop made simple but charming wooden toys for our entertainment. There were clothes and underwear for us, too. And stockings filled with oranges (exotic, expensive fruit from Florida!), boxes of raisins, candy and a small toy or two.

But mostly, Christmas was a time of expectation and excitement and family and love. Sure, we had spent weeks prior to Christmas poring over the Sears “wish” catalog, marking the things we lusted after and wrote about to Santa. We didn’t get all the things our greedy little hearts desired. Often, in fact, not any of them. That wasn’t the point.

Christmas was about a swelling of the heart, a hug, matching new dress sewn by Ma for the annual Christmas Eve dinner at the Holly Inn with the grandmas (the only time we ate out all year).

Now, for too many families, Christmas is a time of stress, of maxing out the credit card. (Have you noticed that on all of the morning shows for the last week or two there have been segments devoted solely to reducing the holiday stress of gift-buying and managing the finances related to it?)

For some it is a time of unfathomable loneliness and thoughts (or acts) of suicide. (I’ve noticed more PSAs than usual for suicide hotlines on late night TV.) It is a time when the baby Jesus is forgotten, and the message of hope for humankind is lost in the riot of Black Friday and hype of Cyber Monday.

The other day, while I was doing my volunteer duties at the Chandler Library, some of the library staff were commiserating about what to buy for their Secret Santa people, and what makes a good gift for young nieces and nephews and in-laws who already have everything. Of course, I had to add my two cents. Because, after all, I’m so freaking smart.

Many years back my sisters and I decided we’d had it with wracking our brains for presents for each other, the kids, the folks, the cousins, etc. We decided to simply call it quits with presents altogether. Instead we opted to each send a big check to our local food pantries in honor of each other.

We also, one year, opted to make purchases from the Heifer Project, of pigs or cattle or chickens, for families in third world countries. Now, instead of one more gimcrack on the shelf, we have the knowledge that somewhere someone is a little less hungry, or a little more self-sufficient. We call each other and talk on the phone (Florida and Ottawa are so far away), missing and loving each other through the ether.

Now that we’re in Arizona with both our boys and Randy and Laura’s little boys, in a land where homes are small and space is at a premium, we show our boundless love for each other by not buying “stuff” that will increase the claustrophobia.

Besides the donations to charity, a gift card or two for the adult children are wonderful. A big check for each of the little boys’ college funds and twenty crisp dollar bills suffice for the kids. Time together is the precious commodity now, and we treasure every moment.

I’ll leave it for you to read somewhere else about the horrible effect our crass consumerism does to the planet at large. In the big scheme of things we do far more harm, overall, than good with our need to obscenely consume goods that, in the long run, add nothing of lasting value to our lives. Just stroll through your local thrift store if you don’t believe me.

I’m not completely without Christmas cheer when this season rolls around.  I love to sing the hymns and carols. I love stuffing my dollars into the Salvation Army kettles. I love the displays of lights in my neighborhood  And I love the Christmas story, the one in my King James Bible that Linus quotes in the Charlie Brown movie.

We live in an era where time is one of our rarest commodities, where our kind words are unpracticed and, too often, unspoken. Consider that of all the precious gifts you could give this year, an hour or two of your time, over coffee or a meal, or time spent handwriting a note of love and appreciation (instead of inside a mall jockeying for that not-really-so-special-something), might be the dearest gift of all. Forego the things made possible by your wallet, and be generous with those things made possible by your heart.

Maybe it’s too late for this Christmas, but you could put it on your list for next year.