The Gift Of The Magi

When I woke up this morning, I made a conscious decision to avoid all areas where people shop heavily.  This limited my movements pretty significantly.  I carefully mapped out a strategy to get to the airport, to lunch with the kidlings, and still accomplish all the errands I had remaining without getting near a mall, strip mall, or the dreaded Walmart/Target Alley of Shopping Hell in North Natomas.  For the next five weeks, I will be avoiding entire sectors of the City.

I don’t understand the mania of holiday shopping.  Stepping into a mall during this season, along with 10 million other people, parking eight miles away, only to find something for the sake of finding something to give someone who will probably not like whatever you got because you did just grab it with little thought other than to finish your shopping and who will regift it somewhere else down the line, just seems crazy to me. 

With store holiday décor going up about Halloween time, it’s clear to me that somewhere along the way, we’ve lost the true meaning of both the giving and receiving of gifts, nevermind the true meaning of Christmas. 

I think about one of my favorite stories from literature, “The Gift of the Magi,” by O Henry.  It’s a simple tale, where a young couple both sacrifice the thing they love the most in order to buy their beloved that one special gift.  But, as with most O Henry, there’s a touch of irony to be enjoyed as well.  I’m quite sure that neither Jim, nor Della, the protagonists of this story, ever needed to step foot into a mall or order something up online that would later be regifted.  They had the beauty of giving down to a science.

I know I don’t remember a lot of the gifts I got when I was young, but I do remember the one great gift I got one year when we were the poorest, when the year had been the hardest.  Even as a kid, I knew that my folks had struggled to come up with the $10 to buy it.  I wonder why that memory sticks out so well?

The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi. ~ O Henry

 Published on: Nov 25, 2006