The Christmas gift buying frenzy is in full swing. It seems like this season starts earlier and earlier each year. As children were thinking of settling into the school season and no hint of leaves changing color, the marketing machine began promoting Black Friday. It was rather jolting to see Halloween candy and decorations displayed side by side with Christmas merchandise. One store making a rather humorous statement had a skeleton holding a Christmas wreath!
Back when dinosaurs were roaming the earth
and I was a child, the Christmas season officially kicked off after the
Thanksgiving celebrations of a massive meal and department store sponsored
parades. The Christmas merchandizing machine then kicked into high gear and catalogues
began arriving in mailboxes with enticements to purchase must-have gifts.
Children folded down corners of the catalogue’s pages and marked items with an
“X” to drop subtle hints for appropriate gifts for parents to purchase for
their little darlings. A parent may even have ventured to a local store to
survey their children’s suggestions and to see about any layaway possibilities.
Credit cards were not avaliable in those days so other purchase arrangements
needed to be made.
When Christmas morning arrived, children
would rush to the tinsel bedecked tree. They would hover over brightly wrapped gifts
to see which of the boxes had their names on attached tags. When the parental
signal was given the wrapping paper was quickly shredded and a gift was
uncovered. It was a delight sometimes, and a disappointment on other occasions.
The disappointment arose because this was not what was expected. A child
thought, “Did I mark this in the catalogue?” The letdown may have arisen because
the expectation was bigger than the reality – the gift was not as spectacular
as the catalogue portrayed it to be. In those cases, a gift garnered attention
for a short amount of time, but then it was set aside almost as quickly as it
had been unwrapped. On occasions the gift was enjoyed until it broke, or it
became boring. Then it was set aside, too. Sometimes, even when the gift was
delightful, it had to be returned because it was defective – something missing
or broken that kept the gift from fulfilling its design. All the gift-hype was
over quickly and sometimes a grand funk set in of “gift letdown.” All this expectation,
but for what?
Certainly, one would find this a grand
opportunity for parental Lecture 101, “Be thankful for what you got.” But somehow that speech just didn’t diminish
the letdown. As far as the child was concerned the Christmas gift was a bust.
All that expectation was for nothing. However, there were those times when the
gift was perfect. Most amazingly, the child didn’t even know it was coming or
that they needed it. It was a gift producing total
satisfaction and was highly cherished.
The first Christmas offered the best gift
because it came from our Father Creator who knew perfectly what people needed. Humanity
had leafed through the “world’s” catalogue of satisfying gifts and came up
disappointed. The world’s catalogue suggested frail trinkets to satisfy a soul’s
need. Each trinket looked tempting but was lacking in providing what was needed
most. The first Christmas offered the gift that was perfect, met the greatest
needs of people, and was cherished by those who accepted the gift as a divine
provision fitting perfectly into the void in their lives. It was not defective,
disappointing, or deficient in any way. The gift is described in the most
familiar verse in the Bible, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his
one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have
eternal life” (John3:16 NLT). The gift was perfect, even though it was not what
people thought they needed or even expected. It was a gift that arrived at the
perfect time – “When the right time came, God sent his Son…” (Galatians 4:4
NLT). The gift came in a perfect way – “born of a woman” whom God chose (Ibid.).
The gift provided a perfect plan, “To buy freedom for us who were slaves to the
law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children” (Ibid.). Those who receive
this gift find they have a gift that produces total satisfaction and is highly
cherished.
According to the National Retail
Federation, 17.8% of merchandise sold in the Christmas season will be returned
– $428 billion – 2 out of every 3 customers will return a gift (giftmeyourtime.com).
The most returned item was clothing. The gift just didn’t fit – their body or
taste. The gift that God gave at Christmas will not need to be returned. It is
a perfect fit for all of humanity. It is a gift that will be considered
precious by all who receive it. Have a great Christmas with a perfect gift!
