A Christmas Sadness. (12/25/07)
By: David Gilbert
Tags: Sadness, Memoir, Christmas Gifts

(Includes a 2020 update at the bottom.)

Does anyone else feel sad at Christmas? I usually am having a great holiday spending time with family, visiting friends, and having time off of work… then it happens. I feel sad. Down. Just as the sadness hits for the year, it dawns on me, “I felt sad last Christmas too!” As I run an emotional inventory on my past Christmas emotions, I realize this has been a recurring theme. I try to hide the sadness.

Why do I feel sad??? I think hits immediately after or during the gift exchange. I can recall putting on fake smiles and a blanket of negative emotion. I hide my truth so that others won’t notice. Some of the proposed mechanisms for this “bad” feeling are discussed below:

1. I may feel guilty for getting expensive things, when others have little or none.

2. I feel bad when I find myself not liking a gift I received. The gift may be clothing that is ugly, or just someting I would never use. This dislike juxtaposed next to the gift giver whom I do like creates an emotional discord. They must think the gift is wonderful. This makes me feel horrible, I feel as if I am pretentious, elitist or a snob. Though to have different tastes is only natural. Or, I discover the gift was on a closeout sell. They picked a gift from the bottom of the barrel, not because they liked it but because they felt obligated to give something, and they wanted it to cost them as little as possible.

3. I also feel bad (more guilt here) for putting on a polite smile (which we all know means “fake”) and try to look excited while opening a gift (while I think about exchanging it… mentally tallying up its dollar value).

4. I feel bad when I get a gift that I’ve done perfectly well without, a gift that has little or no return or exchange potential, a gift that will now be a rarely or never used “thing” to clutter up my home. I hate clutter, its oppressive. I’ll just throw it away. This may cause feelings of even more negative value. Like, “I’m throwing your kindness away.”

5. I feel guilty for not giving gifts of the same total dollar value to the person with whom I’m exchanging. This year my wife said, “well, next year we’ll be able to give more but we had a small budget this year.” I felt myself feeling worse after that… I was hoping maybe we could institute a spending limit so we wouldn’t get so much stuff next year. Or possibly avoid gift exchanging altogether.

That’s just about it….

No, wait, there’s more! I see all of the gluttony, materialism, and pleasure-centric festivities involving so many “Christians” (myself included) yet none of us did anything to love the poor, the hungry, or the suffering this Christmas. I feel like a fraud. Isn’t that the whole point of being “Christ-like”?

I don’t I want any gifts next year. I don’t think I even want to give gifts next year. No, I take that back… I do want gifts, in the form of gifts given to the poor in honor of how I feel about Christ. I would also like to get my family and friends together for a great dinner to celebrate community and love… then go out and love our community. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel sad at Christmas.

David

Update, one year later. 2008.

The above was written in 2007. Did I take these realizations and make changes? “How’d things go?” you ask. Well, it seems that 2008 I had more to be sad about, but ended up feeling “less sad” than the year previous.

What did I have more to be sad about? There were family relational strains, my father in the hospital, my wife having health problems (now known to be abdominal migraines) on Christmas eve. I had plenty to be sad about.

What went better? Well, there was less gift exchanging. Which meant less fake smiles, also known as “lying straight to your face!” I also tried giving gifts to the homeless (see below). There were less expectations, less responsibility, more freedom, more emotional closeness. Some of which came when we visited the Smart family during their Christmas celebration. A celebration full of acceptance and warmth, but with a lot less expectations placed on us. No one expected me to like their gift or to receive a gift that they would like. Oh, and Ken’s face was a joy to watch. Ken, the father/grandfather of this family had this expression of sheer contentment, fulfillment, and love. It was his soul was reflecting a lifetime’s work of love. I long for that.

Gifting the Homeless. 2008.

So as a response to feeling sad last Christmas, I thought I should give gifts to the homeless. Vanessa and I had six gift bags full of stuff… stalking cap, wool socks, blanket, snacks and treats. On Christmas day we drove downtown and in about 5 minutes gave out the bags. Only one person really seemed grateful for it. She said she began her day by singing happy birthday to her savior. I don’t know her story, but she was all smiles and really seemed to have something to be happy about. The other people, when asked if they’d like a Christmas present, were like “uhh… sure, why not.” They really didn’t seem to care one way or another. I felt like my money could have been better spent on building wells in Africa. Even though it “felt” as if my kindness were wasted, I hoped the one lady felt loved back by her savior Jesus Christ to whom she sang happy birthday.

Update, 2020.

Well, I still don’t like the family gift exchange. One year, we convinced Vanessa’s family to NOT do gifts, but instead save money and commit to going on a family trip. We rented a big house in Colorado and created some excellent memories! (Trip video here! Doesn’t it look like we had fun?!) I know it felt really special and I want to do it again. But it hasn’t happened again. Not yet anyways.

Subsequent years, her family wasn’t on board. The nephews loved it and hope for it again, they even want the same house. But Sarah really missed giving gifts. She just loves giving gifts! She didn’t want anyone else to feel obligated to give in return. This gave me some reason to reflect. Is all the sadness I’ve been having during the gift exchange not because of the situation and it has to do with how I think about it?

Maybe I”m carrying a sense of responsibility for other’s emotions and so I fake the smile? Is my worry about getting equally priced gifts having to do with my fear of how people perceive me? Is it unnecessary? And what about the guilt? Should I simply receive a gift that I don’t like, and then smile because of who the gift giver is? Should I then feel a freedom from any negative emotion even though I know instantly that I will give this gift to Goodwill or throw it away? Is my gift to them giving them the freedom to waste their money giving me stuff I don’t want so that they can feel good about themselves for giving?

If her family wants me to bless them by receiving their gifts, no matter if it is a gift I perceive as good or bad, I can do that.

I tried this in 2019. I threw a lot of crap away. But there were some good gifts that have enhanced my life. There was a great disparity of gift price. I gave much less than some. But I chose to not be burdened by this. I gave them the freedom to overspend. I chose to embrace freedom to spend less, because that reflects my value system, that the material things is not what Christmas is about. My real gift to them was to receive THEIR LOVE. To engage in time spent together in relationship.

The crappy gift and the perfect gift are equal. The motivation for the giving also can be pure and love… or guilt and obligation. Either way, I can choose to receive the PERSON just as they are. Can I then also give MYSELF true and honest? Should I hide my dislike of a gift? Should I say, “Nice try. Goodwill here I come.” Or maybe I receive their gift, and focus my response on what is really here. “Thank you, relative, for the relationship behind this gift. For the person you are. The time we share. Thank you.” Acknowledge the person. Focus on the person. More or less ignore the poor gift because it is meaningless. While, the person is of eternal importance.

David

P.S.

Oh yah… the gifts for homeless. It’s not helping them. It was all acts to obsolve myself of guilt feelings. It wasn’t true help. You can’t drop in for a few minutes or a few hours and bring any real help. I think you have to immerse yourself to bring real help to homeless. If you volunteer serving food at a homeless shelter on Christmas, to me it feels that is supporting those who are really helping. The people who are there every day of the year in relationship with the homeless they help. They need that support. They need financial support as well.