As I write this, I am reminded of the modern evolution of Christmas. When I was young, we wished each other “Merry Christmas.” I heard on the radio today “Have a holly, jolly Christmas,” which I think is a song from several years ago. Now, of course, to avoid offending anyone, we say “Happy Holidays,” with no reference whatsoever to the person whose birthday it is.

That got me thinking about gifts and the fact that the other day I heard that “re-gifting,” that is giving a gift you got from one person to another person, was now OK behavior. So, if you got it and you don’t like it, you don’t have to pretend to like it – you can re-gift it.

Which made me think of a new type of giving which is soon to follow, particularly in the “it’s all about me” generation. That new type of giving is what I call “rebound giving.” See, I pick a gift which I would want, like golf balls. I then give golf balls to someone who could care less. Rather than re-gifting them to a third person, they could turn around and give them to me and, voila, I now have them and have been the beneficiary of a “rebound gift.” I could have bought them for myself, but this way two people get to feel good, me for giving and them for giving back.

But at this time of the year, at Christmas, surely there is a better message than this about gifting. There is. We celebrate Christmas because God chose to give us a gift which we did not deserve and which we cannot give back. It is a gift which the world has done its best to destroy … from Herod’s murder of the babies after hearing of Jesus’ birth to trying to kill Him on the cross to the Church’s corruption of the gospel throughout time. But God’s gift cannot be destroyed. We cannot kill Christ’s birth by ignoring Him, by hiding Him behind bland references to “holidays” and “Santa Claus” and “snowmen” and all of the other distractions of the age, or by ridiculing Him. God’s gift to us in Jesus Christ is indestructible.

The Gift. And for Him, I give thanks. Merry Christmas! Join me in the celebration!