Without Gifts (Based on How The Grinch Stole Christmas)

What would Christmas be without gifts? Really? Christians might talk a lot about wanting to get closer to the "Reason for the Season," attempting to set aside the clutter and busyness, condemning the consumerism that seems almost forced upon us with constant commercial ads and store’s blasting Christmas carols, but after years and years of centering the Christmas Season around gift giving and receiving we have to ask ourselves, really, what would Christmas even look like without presents?


We wake up on December 25th….and what do we do? No presents under the tree. No kids jumping on our beds pulling us into the chilled air at unreasonable times. No decorated papers thrown all over the living room floor. Would we be motivated to drive miles and miles to see family? Would we continue to count down the days of unbearable expectation for the morning upon which all our shopping and thoughtful purchases will culminate in the smiles of our children and the happiness of our friends and family? A gift that symbolizes the importance they hold in our lives; showing them that they were remembered…that they are loved.

With this culture of reasoning about the centrality of gifts during the Christmas Season, it seems quite appropriate that the Grinch so vengefully rejects the season of Christmas. Living up on a mountain, rejected by the community he once was a marginalized member of, he receives no Christmas cards and he expects no gifts. He knows nothing of the joy of giving or receiving but more importantly he knows nothing of the mutual love of relationships based on an unconditional acceptance and grace…and still in his perpetual bitterness and loneliness it is the rejection and isolation he feels from the people of Whoville that gives him the wisdom and the courage to challenge the current system of love exchanged through the act of material trading.

Like us, the Grinch sees an aspect of ‘stupidity’ in a season based on the conditions of consuming that which we don’t need. In his anger and woundedness the Grinch mistakenly believes he can ruin Christmas for all of Whoville by impersonating Santa Claus and stealing all of their presents.

While most of us (I hope) aren’t ready to rob the homes of others in an effort to squelch a false sense of Christmas joy, 78% of Americans report that they also wish that Christmas was less materialistic, less about busy shopping malls and credit card debt and more about…well, something else.

And while we might all agree that Christmas isn’t about presents, our actions repeatedly tell a radically different Christmas tale. A habitual confession that no matter how much many of us might question the seemingly irrational consumerism of a season that we idealize to be about charity and connectionalism, we are stuck in a cycle that has very often overshadowed any of our good intentions of creating a sacred space during the Christmas Season.

But unlike us, The Grinch had nothing to lose. Rejecting Christmas for him had little consequence. He was already an outcast, already exempt from the busyness and consumerism that plagues all of Whoville.

Perhaps it takes someone like the Grinch, someone for whom loneliness is constant and expressions of mutual love are void, to remind us of the importance of the gifts God has already given us. The gift of time together in a world where time so often races past us. The gift of connectedness and relationships that we so often take for granted. The gift of a space where we fit in, where we are loved and accepted, remembered and appreciated.  And perhaps most importantly for a time valued for generosity of the heart, the gift of grace, that allows is to reach out to The Grinch’s of the world, that they might know and experience the gift of God’s inclusive family spreading the gift of unconditional love.