Leading the Season

Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift — articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules.

-- 1 Kings 10:25

It’s as much of a holiday tradition as watching It’s a Wonderful Life while sipping hot chocolate under the mistletoe.

Marketers call it leading the season or Christmas creep. It’s the rollout of Christmas-themed merchandise and decorations prior to the normal start of the holiday shopping season. This

year, with just 25 days between the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, many stores began displaying festive tinsel, blinking lights and artificial evergreens well before Halloween.

Retailers and websites have been prompting us for weeks to make our gift purchases. Just count the repetitious holiday-themed commercials on TV. Meanwhile, the Christmas catalogs are piling up on the coffee table. And odds are that your email in-box is also struggling with the Yuletide onslaught of consumerism.

But there is some holiday relief for the weary. If you don’t feel like finding a parking spot at the mall, that perfect gift for that someone special is just a tap or two away with your smartphone. Money, however, is particularly tight these days for many of us, so every purchase has to count. We need gifts that will make an impression. We need value. And above all, we want bang-for-the-buck.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to stretch a dollar this Christmas. But let’s consider that a gift’s real value has much more to do with its meaning and the person behind it. That’s why we must give with an attitude of generosity: one that exceeds what we expect to receive. Our gifts should also affirm the value of the recipient. But most importantly, our gifts — whatever they might be — should be given out of love. It really IS the thought that counts.

Christmas is just days away and the countdown clock is ticking. But before we log onto Amazon.com or tune into the Home Shopping Network, let’s follow the examples of Jesus, who was and is the ultimate gift-giver. His greatest present was the eternal salvation he bought for us through his death on the cross. It’s an extravagant gift, given freely out of love, that we can never repay. But unlike the retailers’ tradition of leading the season, it’s one that’s never too soon to enjoy.