Season’s Gifts for a Meaningful Christmas

The Christmas season is wrapped in wonder, love, and peace as if a gift in itself.

 In the Episcopal tradition, Christmas is a season lasting twelve days, not a one-day event, and rightly so. Personally, I relate this to seasons within our own lives when we are not only prompted by our desire to give gifts to friends, family, or neighbor (as did the Good Samaritan) but are also in a position where capable of doing so, whether from an occurrence of abundance or from what we’ve “set aside” for giving.

Seasons of giving are equally meaningful to both the recipient and the gift bearer.

The twelve days of Christmas culminate with the day of the Three Kings or Wise Travelers from the East. These travelers who brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the young Christ Child did so out of response to their waiting and their watching. They waited for the right season within the fabric of time and space and knew it was the time to do so based on their observance of the heavenly bodies, namely the observed star.

I appreciate the stories shared by my dad and mom, born in Puerto Rico in 1927 and 1938, respectively, which tell of a rich Puerto Rican tradition better portraying the Christmas season as a time of giving and receiving, even as the economy during that era was in shambles.

My dad’s first Christmas memory is with his mom, who passed away after childbirth when he was approximately six years old. It was Three Kings’ Day, circa 1933/34, as this is when presents were given. He awoke to a room full of presents on January 6.  She spoiled him that year with gifts he didn’t know she could afford. This is one of his last memories of her, still remembered to this day at the age of ninety-seven after the onset of Alzheimer’s.  

When he was a bit older and living with his dad, his dad asked what he wanted for Three Kings’ Day. His wish came true! His dad bought him a new writing tablet and a pen. A simple gift that left him equally as happy as with the room full of gifts.

My mom’s first memories of Christmas are from the 1940s and include the Advent season of waiting. During her Christmas break from school, she was forced into labor by her mother to sew clothes for all the town’s children so they would all have something nice to wear for Christmas service. She eagerly waited for relief from sewing as much as her mother waited eagerly to see the tiny children in new clothes or the smiles on their parents’ faces at the sight of newly sewn outfits.

My mom’s second Christmas memory is one during which she could wait no longer. That Advent she stumbled upon a box of chocolates tucked away in a closet. Ever so often, she’d sneak a chocolate candy from the box when no one was looking. January 6, Three Kings’ Day, finally arrived, and to her amazement, the Wise Men brought her a new box of chocolates. To her dismay, all of the chocolates inside had been eaten. That Christmas brought the best Christmas gift ever: a gentle hug from her mom, the only one she recalls being given her whole life.

This Advent I tried, again, to practice patiently “waiting”—specifically waiting to purchase gifts seemingly meaningful to me and hopefully equally so for their recipients. I’ve reminded myself what it’s not about and yet I’ve tried to be patient with myself when the humbug’s shadow began to appear, admonishing myself with this acknowledgment, “It’s not about Christmas day, but the entire season. The season will prolong itself for twelve days, and for sure, by day twelve it’ll all be okay.”

I haven’t yet studied the reasoning behind the twelve days of Christmas; I’ll set myself to do so. For now, I’d like to think that, during this season of Christmas, I, and we, choose to give gifts reminiscent of what we wished we could give the whole year, all twelve months.

As I ended the year with gift-giving on December 25^th, during this exchange, I realized again what I thought I already knew. The gifts we exchange are, in essence, intangible acts of giving and receiving, not the tangible theatrical props used in the exchange.

I’m sure that wise gift-bearing travelers from the East once slept soundly, reflecting on this same truth.