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4 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
Gifts for people who need nothing
Keith
Roulston is
editor and
publisher of
The Rural
Voice. He .
lives near
Blyth, ON.
My wile looked at the calendar
about mid-October and groaned at the
realization that Christmas shopping
approached. It got me thinking about
why Christmas shopping is such a
dread for so many people these days.
Is it that we're getting older and
haven't the energy? That's probably
part of it. Is it the financial drain? Not
really.
I think what takes the fun out of
Christmas is the stress and frustration
of trying to buy gifts for people who
don't really need anything. If you can
imagine the gift you've found is
going to make the eyes of the
recipient light up with pleasure then
Christmas shopping is fun. But as our
society's wealth has increased, we
really need much less and therefore
it's harder to find something that will
really make someone happy.
In contrast to today, I keep
remembering the wedding scene in
the movie Fiddler on the Roof. The
young couple receives gifts such as a
chicken for each Sabbath for the first
month of their marriage and a pair of
down pillows — things that are really
needed because they were just
starting out.
When 1 was young, the
community had a dance for young
people who had just been married.
The money was truly needed to help
people set up their house. Couples
today often use the money from their
stag or from wedding gifts to pay for
an exotic honeymoon. They still have
showers even though they've been
living together for years and already
have a fully -equipped home.
The Christmas catalogue from a
well-known chain that I recently
looked through contained plenty of
the kinds of gifts to buy for people
who don't really need anything.
There was a special appliance for
cooking rice and a countertop roaster.
These may indeed have some
benefits but at over $100 each they
definitely weren't a necessity. If you
were short of money you'd never
even dream of having one.
I regularly read newspaper
columns by people who urge Canada
to cut government expenses so
business can improve productivity. If
we don't become more productive,
the columnists warn, our standard of
living will not continue to improve.
Now if they said our standard of
living would decline because we
were no longer competitive with
hungry Third World nations, I could
buy the argument. But they argue that
we must continue to improve our way
of life.
We in North America certainly
understand the drive to improve our
way of life. All of us except the
aboriginal population, are only here
because some forebearer decided life
could be better by leaving wherever
they were to journey to the New
World. But for the vast majority of us
the search for a better life has become
hollow. How much better can life be?
If heaven was recreated here on earth,
would a lot of people know they were
in it?
If Christmas shopping is stressful
because of our search for something
new and different, think how stressful
it must be for the people in product
development in various
manufacturing companies. "What can
we possibly come up with that people
will think is essential to buy this
Christmas?"
So last year it was a little gadget
you can carry with you that will hold
15,000 songs. This year it's the same
gadget that now will show television
programs on a three-inch screen. This
is a hot item with the same people
who insist life isn't worth living
without a 52 -inch television.
We keep giving gifts to people
who don't need gifts and stressing out
because we can't give them some-
thing that really matters. Somehow
the whole reason for giving gifts at
Christmas seems to have been lost
but we're still going through the
motions.0