True meaning of Christmas is in what you give, not get
As the holiday season unfolds, most of us are wrapped up in the frenetic cycle of buying presents andmaking plans and preparations for the big day.
Christmas had often been referred to as “the season of giving,” however, as our culture grows more materialistic, it has rapidly turned into “the season of getting.” It has often been said “It is more blessed to give than to receive” and, in my experience, the true meaning of Christmas lies in recognizing that giving is receiving.
This can be a difficult concept for our ego-driven, “me-first” culture to grasp, but I firmly believe that the true meaning of Christmas lies completely in embracing this very concept. To really understand this concept, we need to examine our culture’s obsession with “having’ and “getting.”
The core of our cultural belief system appears to be that “having” can only be achieved through “getting.” Our culture teaches us that what we get, we keep, and what we give, we lose. Our cultural-driven egos always seek to “get” through some form of contriving and some degree of manipulation. Our egos always believe that there is some cost associated with “getting” what we somehow believe that we do not “have.”
However, the actual truth is that we all have everything that we need already. Overcoming our cultural beliefs around giving requires that we systematically attempt to remove the obstacles to our awareness that we already possess— all the love, joy, peace, and abundance that we will ever need. This can be a very hard concept to embrace as most of us feel something is lacking in our lives our lives.
Changing our views on giving requires that we look at ourselves in a radically different way.
Our ego-self will always perceive us as lacking in some fundamental way. Our spiritual self recog- nizes us all as being children of God, created in his image and likeness and, therefore, at our essence, sees us as being whole and complete. To transform our views on giving, we must see ourselves and each other through a spiritual perspective and recognize our fundamental integrity and interconnectedness.
If we adopt this perspective, it becomes easier to give unconditionally, without any expectation of getting anything back. However, the irony is that by giving, we get everything back.
Overcoming our cultural distortions on giving require that we recognize that “having” rests on “giving,” not “getting.” Whatever we give, we actually receive and recognize what we give as something we already have. The best way to receive love is to give it away. Whatever we give away to others becomes multiplied in ourselves. Anything of any real value in this world can only be increased by giving it away.
The true sprit of Christmas lies in the recognition that to truly “have” something, you must give it away.
Each act of giving is a commemoration of the ultimate and miraculous act of giving exemplified by Jesus, who is the perfect model of giving and the true “reason for the season.”
Just as Jesus’ ultimate act of giving continues to resonate into eternity, so does every act of true giving. We can never really know the impact relatively “small” acts of giving will have. Because they are based on love, true acts of giving reverberate out into the world long after the act of giving is over.
This is the true miracle of giving and the true meaning of Christmas.
May all our giving this holiday season be done out of this spirit.