Christmas: Have Your Gifts Become a Measure of Your Love & a Tool to Manipulate Your Perceived Status and Worth?

The idea of gift giving and consumerism took over like a snowball gaining momentum down a mountain. Love and happiness at Christmas was widely advertised as something you could buy! Consumerism has today peaked due to the easy access of advertising distribution especially through electronic media in the western world. Many are now buying expensive gifts or just too many gifts that are way out of their financial capability and even competing with gifts like our Roman ancestors!

Our Roman ancestors were big gift givers. However, the good heartedness of gift giving became confused and corrupted. Sometimes gifts were used as a tool of manipulation as part of a calculated game! Presents were used like hooks whilst others became greedy giving an expensive present and expecting nothing less than the same in return or dammed the other person. It all became a wearisome calculated play of gift giving. We are getting glimpses of what happened then today as mass media has lead the way for present giving to become a measure of our love, our status and our worth. Unfortunately, the “material” focal point has for many people surpassed the real meaning of Christmas.

In the modern world with confusion about how to celebrate and give to each other at Christmas, many people have became lost or disillusioned with the shallowness of “show and tell” presents that have taken over as a main ritual. As a result debt has become an overwhelming depressing problem for many as easy access to borrowed money through credit cards has become the norm today!

Even though gifts are being exchanged vast and wide, without reflective rituals there is a loss of deep connection and renewed hope between people. A hedonistic distortion of the ritual of gift giving has lead to the loss of the real meaning of Christmas. A time to come together in gratitude and acknowledgment of one another, rebuilding, forgiving and reconnecting with each other as we renew the virtues of love and peace on the planet. A time of rituals, sharing and not being alone. A time to be a “good Samaritan” opening our doors and our hearts as we celebrate. A time of forgiveness; as our ancestors said “Lay down your arms and embrace” where we “embrace” the meaning of love by releasing judgments, blame and unforgiveness so we can start rebuilding or building bridges with loved ones, friends, fellow human beings and ultimately with ourselves. Most of us need tools and techniques to help us to look inside ourselves to unfold the truths that will reconnect us and set us free. Modern-day Santa Claus has Blessings and Creeds that can help us in this process!

So the lack of rituals in the modern world at Christmas has contributed to loosing touch with ourselves and our hearts and the real meaning of Christmas. It got lost as the attractive material gift giving took precedence exacerbated by the heavy advertising campaigns to make us focus on the gift itself and buy buy buy! Thus for many people Christmas has become the most important shopping event of the year. It is claimed that up to 70 percent of many merchants annual revenue is made during the Christmas season alone!

With material gift giving taking precedence no wonder there are a lot of depressed, lonely, disconnected and unfilled people each year as they miss the greatest opportunity to participate in the reflective rituals that celebrate the real meaning of Christmas!

And the author Bernadette Dimitrov invites you to visit her radio podcast show “Conversations with Mrs Claus” The Family Yak An inspirational show with fascinating guests world-wide with prizes to be won! Also come visit HoHoHo Christmas and join her free inspirational Christmas newsletter with great recipes, insights & gift ideas & receive inspirational free gifts including her free 10 day e-course with audio “Amazing Ways to Enrich Your Christmas Experience!”