We have a wonderful event at one of the Churches in the Ipswich Circuit. Tea and Toast happens on a Friday morning and offers a free breakfast to people in the large residential estates around the Church, and it is good to see families from the neighbourhood coming into the Church and having a lovely time together. Our loyal team of volunteers get out a wide range of toys for the children to play with, and what never ceases to amaze me is that the most popular entertainment for the little lads in particular are the plastic chairs and they spend hours shoving them around the floor. I guess that most of us who are parents and grand parents will remember times when we have bought nice presents for our children for birthdays or Christmas, only to find that they are far more entertained by boxes and packaging, rather than the contents, and I would argue that this spills over into adult life, I can still be quite entertained as much by a sheet of bubble wrap as I can be by the gift protected by it. I am always shocked by the very targeted advertising during advent, suggesting that the only way to please your children is to buy them the most extravagant gifts imaginable normally with price tags way above their parents budget.
My concern during January every year is that the credit card bills are now rolling in, and the money that was spent in December trying to make Christmas the most memorable ever, maybe now doesn’t feel to have been such a good idea. I understand that toy manufacturers and retailers need to make money, but we seem to have reached an age where things are judged purely by their monetary value and we get accustomed to hearing “only £499!” as though that is mere nothing to pay for happiness, yet I gasp at the price five hundred quid is a lot of money for most people. I’m old enough to remember that when I first started working, that would have been a year’s salary for me. I’m not entirely sure that the expensive gifts we buy our children are really worth the money and over the years I have come to learn that some of the things that are most precious to me, have very little monetary value.
Christmas is still sufficiently fresh in our minds for us to remember that the greatest gift that humankind has ever received is the gift of Jesus, the Christ Child, who was born into poverty. I know that the visitors from the east, the kings, wise men, magi, whatever we want to call them brought precious gifts according to St Matthews gospel, but their importance wasn’t their price tag, but rather, their significance. Maybe we do well to stop sometimes and reflect on what we have in life and how much it means to us. Cristina, Georgina Rosetti wrote in the final verse of In the bleak midwinter.
What can I give him?
poor as I am
if I were a shepherd
I would give a lamb
if I were a wise man
I would do my part
yet what I can I give him
give my heart.