A person proffering a gift, wrapped in paper decorated with candy canes and tied with red and white string. Photo: By Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash.
Present and correct? Mark Russ’s Thought for the Week
‘Gifts are about a longing to be known.’
I’m a Quaker who celebrates Christmas and loves gifts. My non-Quaker husband annually wonders aloud whether, this year, we should forego gift-giving. The answer’s always no. I love having something to open on Christmas Day. Does that make me a bad Quaker? Giving gifts for the sake of it does seem pretty wasteful. My family is materially comfortable, and so each year I find myself buying presents for people who already have everything. I see my nephews drowning in excess, overwhelmed by the mountain of gifts to the point that individual presents lose all meaning. Quakers might call this ‘cumber,’ that which weighs us down, which stifles our relationship with the Spirit and obstructs our ministry. Many Christmas gifts aren’t even gifts in the true sense, given freely with no expectation of return. Instead, they are mainly a reciprocal affair. The festive orgy of exchanging needless gifts-which-aren’t-gifts transgresses our Quaker commitments to both simplicity and truth.
