Deck the halls, let’s be merry, 'tis the season to be jolly. Not that we in TT – for all our stresses and strains – need much excuse to celebrate and to make the best of things.
One of the abiding aspects of the Christmas season is the exchanging of gifts. We follow the example of the three biblical kings, Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar, who, according to the gospel of Matthew, took gold, frankincense and myrrh to the baby Jesus after following a guiding star that led them to the stable where He lay.
They were not random gifts. Gold was because Jesus was a king and gold signified wealth. As for the other two gifts, my online research tells me frankincense is a natural ingredient that comes from a tree and in ancient times was used in religious and spiritual rituals as a symbol of holiness and righteousness.
The wise king may not have known it then, but it has anti-inflammatory, pain-relieving, and potentially other health benefits. And myrrh, “a gum-resin extracted from a few small, thorny tree species of the Commiphora genus” was used in ancient wisdom in medicine, perfumery and incense to purify places, harmonise energies and communicate with the gods.
They were all well-considered gifts that the child Jesus received to mark his birth.
Of course, gift-giving has been so commercialised that quite often the gifts we receive during this festive season are merely gestures. And if you have a Christmas-time birthday, as I do, as a child you learn pretty fast that the token (two only if you are lucky) will have very little relevance to your desires. Some overworked relative just ticked you off from a longlist of names.
In our sizeable extended family, we had a sweet, generous and very sociable aunt who gave everyone she knew a Christmas gift. She started her Christmas shopping as one Christmas ended, and stored and wrapped the items throughout the year. She added to the pile some of the unwanted items from the endless number of reciprocal gifts she had received.
Unfortunately, she did not keep track, and some gifts found their previous owners. We laughed, because it was the gesture that mattered most, and she was always sharing lovingly, all year long.
At our traditional Christmas Day family gathering we gradually discouraged the gift-giving, because there just was no room under the tree for the number of gifts stacking up for up to 25 people. I miss it, though, because both the giving and accepting of presents are important elements of human life.
Giving is known to reduce stress, anxiety, and feelings of isolation and to lead to greater overall well-being, even though Christmas shopping can be an ordeal. All giving requires effort, and regardless of the gift itself, we feel good about sharing and the sacrifice.
Receiving, on the other hand, can feel uncomfortable, sometimes embarrassing. I feel awkward about the transactional nature of seasonal exchanges, perhaps because of my childhood experience. But that may be ungenerous, because we have to believe that when someone presents a gift, they deri
