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The most important gift of Christmas
• Christmas is about sharing
Sometime after the birth of Christ on that first Christmas day, the baby and his parents were visited by wise men from the East. They came to honour the sacred occasion with loving gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh. Their kind offering gave rise to a tradition that now seems insepa rable from the Christmas season: giving gifts to those we love.
Stories about gifts of love were later associated with Saint Nicholas and others, whose charitable giving became legendary and served to reinforce the importance of sharing with those around us.
In such giving, it isn’t just the gift that is valuable; it’s the love behind it. The distance the wise men travelled and their love for the newborn King were part of the gift! Indeed, the true spirit of holiday giving is the spirit of love and sacrifice for others.
One young man loves Christmas not because of what he receives but rather because of the delight he finds in giving special gifts to people he loves. He plans his gift-giving for months, deciding on just the right gift for each person on his list. He can’t afford to buy anything expensive or elaborate, but he can afford to give his heart, to think about what would bring joy to the one whose name is carefully written on the tag placed on each gift. Sometimes, when he thinks it would mean the most, the young man gives gifts of his own time and effort, such as a promise to shine shoes, wash a car, or do some other personal service. These are the gifts that both, he and the recipient, usually cherish the most and remember the longest.
This is a lesson that we learn again every Christmas, that it’s the love and sacrifice behind the gift that make it truly meaningful. Of ten the most valued gifts are given by those in need themselves. That’s part of the magic of Christmas: you don’t have to be rich to give gifts that come from a richness of love.
It’s been said that not all of us can do great things but we can do small things with great love. The true spirit of Christmas shines through when even small gifts are given with great love.
Love, family, and faith make Christmas meaningful. Things bought from the store may fill your house and surround Christmas trees, but it doesn’t fill our hearts with joy and contentment for long.
During the holiday season, the more we chase after merchandise, the further we get from the true spirit of the holiday. And how many ends up buying things that they either do not need or cannot afford because they want their loved ones to have a “happy” Christmas. We all know that gifts don’t buy endur ing happiness. In fact, social scientists have confirmed that “chasing possessions tend to make people less happy”.
So if we want our loved ones to have a happy Christmas, we would do well to remember the experi ence of Dr Seuss’s Grinch, who tried to steal Christmas from Whoville by taking away all of its material things, the presents, the feasts, the decorations. But to the Grinch’s great surprise, the people of Who ville still gathered on Christmas morning to sing and to celebrate. Only then did the Grinch realised that Christmas, in its purest form, was much more than he thought it was. It cannot be purchased at any store, and it thrives in our hearts no matter our material possessions.
When we think back on Christ mases, we remember that what made them memorable was not a gift we received, but an experience we had. We recall a happy moment of sharing. We think of a beloved tradition, cherish the gladness of gathering with loved ones, and reread the beloved Christmas story. We remember a warm fire, a snowy night, a favourite song. But we almost never remember the pile of gifts under the tree.
So this year, be deliberate about the holiday activities and traditions that you share with loved ones. Create memories, build loving bonds, and have experiences that outlast throwaway things. Don’t waste the season running from store to store in pursuit of fleeting treasures. Rather, in the words of Him whose birth inspired Christmas, “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. . . . For where your trea sure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:20–21).
By Samuel Enos Eghan
Email: samueleghan@gmail.com
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
