It’s not because of the gifts.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas presents. But to be truthful, I could take them or leave them.
I was raised by deepwater fundamentalists, children of Depression-era people. For holidays, we got a generous helping of Jack squat.
When I was 10 years old, for example, I received a pair of khakis, baseball cards, and a can of smoked oysters.
“I don’t care about gifts,” my grandmother would often say as we unwrapped presents. Then she would recount a childhood story about how she had no shoes at Christmastime.
Meantime, Granddaddy would be eating my oysters and speaking with a full mouth. “Speak for yourself,” he’d tell Granny. “Getting presents excites the hell out of me.”
It’s not because of snow. In my part of the world we don’t get much snow. Things are never bright white and snowy. Things are gray and soggy and everyone has seasonal affective disorder. So instead of making snow angels we just consume alcohol.
It’s not because of the food. My people eat a diet consisting almost exclusively of various cheese products and refined sugar at Christmas. I usually gain, at minimum, 60 pounds every year.
It’s not because of Christmas parties. Although, I do miss parties. I read one study claiming that Christmas parties are down 87 percent from the 1970s.
“Americans just aren’t into Christmas parties…” one study said. Parties in general are becoming a thing of the past. The study even stated that fewer high-schoolers are partying now than ever before in history. “They’d rather play on their phones,” said the study.
It’s not because of Christmas music. Although I do love when the radio plays Bing and Old Blue Eyes. I love Gene Autry singing about what jerks Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen were.
Neither is it because I love household decorations. I love a good balsam fir, and twinkly lights warm my soul.
It’s not because of Santa, either. I love Santa more than the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy and Nick Saban put together. But the Big Guy isn’t the reason I love the Yuletide.
I’m not a smart man, but the reason I love Christmas can be summed up in three words:
Goodwill.
Over 69 percent of Americans say they are more generous at Christmas. Big companies give huge sums of money. Little businesses donate truckloads.
The Boy Scouts of America start buying gifts for kids in foster care. Churches place Christmas trees in the foyer, and collect gifts for the neglected.
Since 1992, One Warm Coat has collected 8 million coats and distributed them.
The Angel Tree program has given over 11 million gifts since it was founded, giving gifts to kids whose parents are incarcerated.
Last year, Americans donated 9.2 million shoebox gifts to Operation Christmas Child.
The Salvation Army receives $557 million dollars during the holiday season. The Red Kettle campaign alone rakes in almost $120 million bucks.
In South Carolina, during the holidays, police officers give motorists frozen turkeys instead of speeding tickets in an annual event called “Turkey, no Ticket.”
Toys for Tots distributes over 8.8 million toys to kids in need.
And don’t even get me started on how great United Way is.
You can see them everywhere. Good people. People who willingly become the best versions of themselves.
Soup kitchens amp up output. Walmart puts Angel Trees in the lobby. Target has the Great Giftogether, providing thousands of families with holiday essentials.
Police departments in Florida give gifts to at-risk children. Fire departments in California donate supermarket buggies. Junior leagues, Girl Scouts, Little League baseball teams, elementary schools, high schools, and even congresspersons.
For approximately 30 days, Americans get excited about helping. Goodwill in the air. It’s in our drinking water. It’s on TV. In every shop window, newspaper ad, community center, and fellowship hall.
And, well, as the old man might say: That excites the you-know-what out of me.
We have a few hundred motorcyclists who get together to take gifts to Toys for Tots this time of year. It takes several minutes for the procession to speed by, complete with a police escort, on their way. It’s inspiring.
As a kid, my mom knew of a family through the hospital where she was doing some training, that was in a bad way. She bought gifts for every one of the kids, plus the mom, and we drove over one evening to try to find their house. I was maybe 10 or 11 at the time. I was supposed to put the presents on the porch, knock on the door, and come back to the car. I got to the porch and put the presents down, but before I could knock, their dog heard me rustling with the gifts and came right after me barking and snarling. I ran for the car just as the porch light came on, but didn’t have time to open the door. I jumped on the trunk with that dog right on my heels. I banged on the back window and she gave it the gas, just as the woman came to her front door, called her dog back, and then I could hear her say, “What’s this? What’s all this?” “Merry Christmas,” I yelled to her, as the car pulled away, luckily not so fast that I slid off the trunk. My mom stopped a driveway or two away so I could get back in the car, as the kids gathered around their mom. I could tell even from that far away, with the woman’s hands on her cheeks, that she had tears streaming down her face. It was a Merry Christmas.
Giving. We do it all out of gratitude for the gifts of love and grace we’ve been given. And even if we haven’t received that much, we give so that others can have more.
A late aunt shared a story about receiving a doll for Christmas, and her baby brother, in time my father, received a little blue toy car. She said if a local church hadn’t given them presents, they’d have had none that particular Christmas in the Great Depression. I was grown when I learned that, my father already passed, and I look differently now at the Polaroids I have of my childhood Christmases with toys for four children almost filling our living room. I thought of the Christmas lights my father put on the front of our house, the lit Santa on the front porch, how often it was said he loved Christmas. His joy, evidently, was giving us what he didn’t have, and I never once heard him speak of the lack he experienced in childhood.