Christmas brings out our best selves. We love to give and be generous to our loved ones, our neighbours and even strangers too. The holiday season carves out precious time to spend with family and friends and, when times are good, there’s extra food and presents to share.
But there’s another side to the season. One that fuels our anxieties rather than the sense of peace and gratitude we’re supposed to feel.
We stress about all the family and friends we need to buy gifts for.
We’re annoyed by the consumerist culture that pressures us to buy more and more ‘stuff’ (especially in a highly inflated economy).
We feel nauseous about the amount of unwanted and excess gifts cast aside (an estimated $921 million-worth in Australia each year!* Imagine the good that money could do?)
And then there’s the anxiety about climate change. Christmas spending and consumption triggers increased production the world over, leading to more plastic and landfill, more deforestation and biodiversity loss, and more greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the climate crisis.
And for us Christians, aren’t we supposed to be remembering Christ is born, a host of angels are singing, magi are giving gifts to honour a king, and God is love and the world is renewed?
Surely, we don’t need to destroy the world while we celebrate our story.
Wider society is on the same page.
Polling by the Australia Institute showed that last Christmas more than 6 million Australians expect to receive presents that they will never use or wear, and nearly half of Australian adults (48%) would prefer it if people did not buy them Christmas presents.
It’s a telling sign about the culture we’re in. While Christmas gift giving has become an uneasy standoff of buying stuff for each other just because its expected, it seems that nearly half the population would, just quietly, rather not.
So, what’s the solution? Surely, we shouldn’t stop giving.
Christmas has become synonymous with extravagant generosity for a reason. Theologian Ben Myers once mused that our urge to give at Christmas arises from the “abounding grace” that Christ brings into the world. Just like the best gifts, God’s grace completely surpasses our needs, so much so that it overflows.
Myers explains:
Gifts are a release valve for the human spirit. The special thing about Christmas isn’t just the use of gifts – that happens on all special days – but the profligate scale of gift-giving. On nearly every other occasion, the gifts are received by one individual. But the joy of Christmas is so high and so deep that we can only express what it means by giving gifts in every direction… we need to give something to someone: otherwise our hearts would burst.
It’s a compelling idea: feeling a joy so high and deep that we’re driven to give to anybody and everybody, lest our hearts explode…
It seems to be something most grandparents have come to know and understand through decades of experience. There’s pure joy to be found in giving – and giving extravagantly.
What if the same idea could be leveraged to fix that other side of the Christmas season, the worry and waste and hyper-consumerism?
What if we let our joy and generosity go in every direction, including to where it’s most needed in our world, and in ways that protect God’s creation?
UnitingWorld’s Everything in Common Gift Catalogue is a way to do just that.
It’s filled with Christmas gifts for all budgets that help local communities in the Pacific, Asia and Africa to fight poverty in the face of climate change and environmental degradation.
There are gifts to help families start their own backyard chicken coops, gifts that provide school books for children in rural India whose families can’t afford to pay for them, gifts of seeds and kitchen gardens for families in Timor-Leste and Maluku to start growing their own fresh, nutritious food and tackle the malnutrition crisis, and so much more.
When you give an Everything in Common gift card to a loved one it honours your spirit of generosity and theirs too.
Not only that, it will overflow to people, communities, creatures and creation that you’ll likely never see or meet.
But you’ll feel them.
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Visit www.everythingincommon.com.au to shop online for gifts that fight poverty and build hope through Uniting Church partners in the Pacific, Asia and Africa. Through your gifts, people get opportunities to grow their incomes, improve their health, send their children to school and take collective action on poverty, climate change and gender-based violence. |
UnitingWorld is the international aid and partnerships agency of the Uniting Church in Australia.