Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Family Barrage

OOOooooOOOooooofffff!! I feel as though I have been used as a tackling dummy whenever I watch television over the holidays. Can it be that I am the only living soul without a perfectly intact, multi-generational family that may have had it rough but always, always, always find a a happy resolution so they can have a wonderful holiday together? Who has that kind of family? I am delighted if they do, but deeply skeptical.

I want a holiday special from Hallmark about families that are hurt or broken or imperfect in some major way that nonetheless find a way to move forward in love without necessarily SOLVING anything. I want TV specials about people with nothing under their tree, and no one to put it there. I want us to wake up as a nation and pay attention to the lost among us, the broken, those torn from home, from family.

I want our media to help us see ourselves, to help us see others.

I get an e-zine (which will remain nameless) that has a desire to have readers contribute content -- so they asked "What was the worst Christmas gift you ever got?", and what followed was a list of emails of people complaining about various gifts that had been tasteless, or purchased from a tag sale, or useless. I found myself getting more and more steamed and wrote this note to the editor. If I get a reply I will let you know.

Dear Editor:
I know it is all in fun, but something kind of bothers me about this topic. OK there are husbands who have yet to understand gift-giving choices, or crazy mother-in-laws who have odd taste. But in both cases, someone has loved the recipient enough to give them a gift that they picked out. Have we become so materialistic that we cannot just understand the love behind a gift and move on? Some people have a hard time selecting gifts, some are just better at it than others.
But this Christmas, as every Christmas, there will be people with no gifts, with no one who loves them -- people who would be thankful for a crummy tie or a funny dish. They would just be glad to have someone in the world who thinks about them.
Perhaps if those of us who are of the Christian tradition just focussed more on the reason for this season, what people did or did not buy us would become less important.
Thanks for listening.

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