The holiday season is upon us. I am appalled, once again, by the utter madness of Black Friday. It seems like every year I hear about someone being trampled or robbed or shot as the holiday rush begins. This year, the big story was about a woman who pepper sprayed fellow shoppers over an X-box. To me, these things seem to be in direct conflict with the notion of goodwill and fellowship I traditionally associate with the holiday season, but I recognize that to some, this is what the holidays are about: fighting with family, making a huge profit on irrational consumer behavior, and getting the one awesome thing you want for Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa...
Gift giving goes back thousands of years to various civilizations, and the idea seems to be that a person shows his or her appreciation for someone by giving him or her something special. The holiday season has a certain ceremonial aspect to it in this regard. For many of us, it's the one time all year that we will go out of our way to say thank you to people we ordinarily take for granted. I'm giving my son's daycare provider a hand-made quilt for Christmas this year, and I admit it will be the first time I've gone out of my way to let her know I appreciate what she does for my family. Perhaps you will be giving similar tokens of appreciation.
This aspect of gift giving is, in my opinion, a good idea, but the tradition of gift giving is less often about appreciation these days than about an obligation. Many of us feel bound by an unspoken code to give everyone we know a gift regardless of whether that gift is heartfelt or not, and many of us, too, have used the holiday season as an excuse to get the toy or gadget or whatever thing it is we feel we deserve.
For parents, the desire to fulfill our children's most frantic desires by buying the toy that is too expensive to justify at any other time of year is bound up with our self worth. If we can purchase an X-box or an iPad for our sons and daughters, we consider ourselves good parents, but if we can't, we are utter failures.
All of these aspects contribute to the insanity of an event like Black Friday, and all of these impulses are, at some level, justifiable or at least understandable, but we are missing something important when we allow ourselves to sink into crazy pants land. We are missing an opportunity to make the holidays meaningful and important in a manner that transcends material possessions.
We must ask ourselves what lessons our children are taking from the holidays. Do they see our intentions, our deepest wishes for them, that they will be happy and healthy? Do they see our kindness and generosity? Or is it something else that they see when we buy meaningless gifts for people solely because we think we owe it to them?
I'd like to encourage you to do something rather different this holiday season. Instead of buying things, volunteer. You can volunteer at soup kitchens or food banks or shelters or even at your child's school. Many teachers would really appreciate a helping hand in their classrooms, and if your school is a Playworks school, you can volunteer with us out on the playground. All you have to do is play a few games, and you will be contributing to something meaningful and valuable. Plus, your kids will see you doing it, and that will go a long way towards communicating what the holiday season is really all about.
Don't feel like volunteering or can't find the time, consider a donation or microvolunteer by sharing information about a cause you support with people you know. Sometimes networking is just as good as giving.
Happy Holidays from Playworks SLC
Gift giving goes back thousands of years to various civilizations, and the idea seems to be that a person shows his or her appreciation for someone by giving him or her something special. The holiday season has a certain ceremonial aspect to it in this regard. For many of us, it's the one time all year that we will go out of our way to say thank you to people we ordinarily take for granted. I'm giving my son's daycare provider a hand-made quilt for Christmas this year, and I admit it will be the first time I've gone out of my way to let her know I appreciate what she does for my family. Perhaps you will be giving similar tokens of appreciation.
This aspect of gift giving is, in my opinion, a good idea, but the tradition of gift giving is less often about appreciation these days than about an obligation. Many of us feel bound by an unspoken code to give everyone we know a gift regardless of whether that gift is heartfelt or not, and many of us, too, have used the holiday season as an excuse to get the toy or gadget or whatever thing it is we feel we deserve.
For parents, the desire to fulfill our children's most frantic desires by buying the toy that is too expensive to justify at any other time of year is bound up with our self worth. If we can purchase an X-box or an iPad for our sons and daughters, we consider ourselves good parents, but if we can't, we are utter failures.
All of these aspects contribute to the insanity of an event like Black Friday, and all of these impulses are, at some level, justifiable or at least understandable, but we are missing something important when we allow ourselves to sink into crazy pants land. We are missing an opportunity to make the holidays meaningful and important in a manner that transcends material possessions.
We must ask ourselves what lessons our children are taking from the holidays. Do they see our intentions, our deepest wishes for them, that they will be happy and healthy? Do they see our kindness and generosity? Or is it something else that they see when we buy meaningless gifts for people solely because we think we owe it to them?
I'd like to encourage you to do something rather different this holiday season. Instead of buying things, volunteer. You can volunteer at soup kitchens or food banks or shelters or even at your child's school. Many teachers would really appreciate a helping hand in their classrooms, and if your school is a Playworks school, you can volunteer with us out on the playground. All you have to do is play a few games, and you will be contributing to something meaningful and valuable. Plus, your kids will see you doing it, and that will go a long way towards communicating what the holiday season is really all about.
Don't feel like volunteering or can't find the time, consider a donation or microvolunteer by sharing information about a cause you support with people you know. Sometimes networking is just as good as giving.
Happy Holidays from Playworks SLC
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