I have a confession to make: I don't like Christmas.
Even though I am a believer in Jesus Christ.
Or maybe because.
There's something about Dec 25 that makes everyone just a little crazy. What's with the long queues in the mall, not enough parking places, songs about winter and snowmen and reindeer that have no relevance to us in the Southern hemisphere, decorating trees and having a houseful of people over for Christmas lunch/dinner, and buying presents not just for one's own family but relatives and friends' children?
We're not living on the edge of poverty, but if we have to keep up with the way Christmas is done here, we certainly will be in danger of it.
I thought we were pretty bad in SG, the way we used to stress over what to get our CG members' kids. Each family would buy for the kids of all the other families, and we're not talking simple things like a box of chocolates. Kris Kringle didn't exist.
Here, I thought we'd finally escaped the consumer trap of buying presents and giving for the sake of giving.
But my girls have been the recipients of so many gifts from unexpected quarters that even though we have no intention of buying into the Christmas frenzy, we are now looking at their rapidly growing pile of presents under our little tree and wondering, how did we get to this? Is it right to have so much when others are struggling? Would anything change if we gave away some of our gifts? (Indeed, I made this suggestion to Beth and she was surprisingly receptive.)
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