With Christmas over and a new year looming, it is tempting to shift from thinking about gifts to making resolutions. But the true gift of the holidays is the one that endures into the year ahead. It is the gift of charity.
Christmas, Hanukkah and other celebrations invite us to sharpen our focus on other people by giving them gifts, spreading holiday cheer and gathering with people who are important in our lives.
It’s easy to spend too much money and too much time in mall parking lots during the holidays. But the partial annoyance of modern gift acquisition can fuel a sense of generosity just as meaningful in April and October as it is in December.
Commonly referred to as the “holiday spirit,” this heightened sense of charity gets celebrated with music and appealed to by advertisers. But holiday charity offers a perspective on how easy and how important it is to help other people.
How many times during a year do we see someone struggle with adversity for face a setback and wonder if we could do anything for them? Beyond listening to their troubles, maybe their woes offer a chance to buy them a gift and cheer them up.
In addition to trees, music, tinsel and other festive trappings, the holidays trigger outbreaks of charity by individuals and groups who often help people they have never met.
High school students wrap gifts for harried shoppers. People recovering from substance abuse take time to bring gifts and treats to others in recovery. Students write and send Christmas cards to servicemen and women spending the holidays thousands of miles away from their families.
The list of selfless service and holiday goodwill is a lengthy one. The benefactors and the recipients often never met one another. Some of the acts of charity are as incidental and fleeting as giving up a spot in a checkout line to someone who appears disabled or yielding in traffic.
These types of simple but generous gestures are easily replicated throughout the year and repeating them does not diminish their significance for the recipient.
The holidays are not so much a time of the year for celebration as they are a chance to revive and reinforce the spirit of compassion dwelling in all of us.