Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Musings: Still Magic

The weather continues on in a spectacular vein, with shafts of light shooting above and below the clouds at sunset and the mornings crystal clear. Orion’s belt was crowning Waialeale when Koko and I went walking this morning in a star-packed world that was so cold it required me to double up on sweatshirts.

As we walked, the blackness faded, then shifted in the east to the faintest flush of pink, a sky poised on the brink of dawn. In the distance, a mist lake formed in the hollow of a pasture, creating a landscape befitting of such adjectives as ethereal and magical.

I’ve been thinking a bit about what really constitutes the magic of Christmas, ever since a friend told me his wife had said this would probably be the peak year for Christmas magic, given that their children are now 4 and 6.

At those ages, they're old enough to understand and young enough to still believe, or at least, most of them, and some keep believing much later than that. I know I held out until age 8, buoyed by the proof of a letter from Santa with a bonafide North Pole postmark. Now kids can go on line to view their own customized video from Santa, as I discovered when a friend sent one to me. I was relieved to learn Santa has me down as nice, and not naughty, which means he knows me a lot better than the anonymous trolls that leave nasty personal jabs on this blog.

Although I usually just ignore much of the Christmas hoopla, this year I’ve been out shopping quite a bit as I prepare a holiday party, replete with gift-wrapped prizes and candy-filled goody bags, for about 200 people, scheduled for tonight. It’s all my part of my newish job, which is part social worker, part social director. Seeing the extravagant displays, and the promises that this or that gift will impart the magic of Christmas, I’ve become aware of the intense pressure that folks feel to find presents that will satisfy, even as I also know, after reading about it in The Week, that people tend to devalue things they get as gifts.

So you’re really better off saving your money and giving, as one saying goes, more presence and less presents.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give at all.

The other day I was talking to a woman who had just returned from California, where she’d spent six weeks in a hotel with her two kids while one was undergoing surgery. The insurance paid for the hotel, but not for meals out, so the ordeal had left her financially and emotionally drained.

When she got home she discovered that she’d lost her eligibility for food stamps and her job had been cut back to part-time. And to top it off, the food pantry that serves the area where she lives was no longer going to be distributing food because some people had taken more than their share, causing a fight to break out among recipients.

“I really counted on that food pantry,” said the woman, who also revealed she had been widowed just weeks before her youngest child was born. Her two sons, meanwhile, are serving in Iraq. “And now that I'm working part-time, it's like I'm just working to pay for my gas. No matter how I try, I just can’t get ahead.”

I’ve learned in my job that if you’re totally helpless, the government will do quite a bit to assist you. But if you’re working, you’re much more likely to fall through the widening cracks.

“You know,” I said to the woman, “I was just today given a $50 gift certificate to Safeway with the instructions to give it to someone who really needs it. And I think that's you.”

I also gave her a ham, one that had been donated to the Kauai Food Bank for distribution to folks that need it.

Her face and mood brightened considerably, even as she then recounted that all the toys for her community had been stolen from the Toys for Tots distribution area.

“Those were for the kids,” she said in disbelief. “How could someone steal them? When did it stop being all about the kids? Did I miss that shift?”

No, I assured her, she hadn’t. Christmas is still about the kids.

And as I thought about the man I don’t know who had purchased the gift card and all the folks who drop money in the Salvation Army kettles and toys in the donation boxes and food at the Food Bank, I knew that despite the bad deeds of some, and the pressures to turn it into a materialistic frenzy, Christmas is also still very much about giving to perfect strangers, with no thought of getting something in return.

Now that's the magic of the season.

28 comments:

giving credit where credit is due said...

Thanks to the Hawai‘i Hotel and Lodging Association, Kaua‘i Chapter, and Coldwell Bankers Bali Hai Realty for the donation of those hams.

Also thanks to Marriott workers who donated 6000 pounds of food last month to the Kauai food bank.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget Times Market. They also donated hams. (Another evil corporation).
;)

Anonymous said...

mahalo joan, happy holidaze! malama pono a hui hou ho ho. peace,......jt

Anonymous said...

Jaon Said: "Christmas is also still very much about giving to perfect strangers, with no thought of getting something in return."

Feeling good about a selfless act.
Priceless!

Anonymous said...

"Hawai‘i Hotel and Lodging Association, Kaua‘i Chapter, and Coldwell Bankers Bali Hai Realty, Times Market, the Marriott."

Sounds like they are getting free publicity for those hams which is quite different than "no thought of getting something in return."

Anonymous said...

""Hawai‘i Hotel and Lodging Association, Kaua‘i Chapter, and Coldwell Bankers Bali Hai Realty, Times Market, the Marriott."

Sounds like they are getting free publicity for those hams which is quite different than "no thought of getting something in return."

December 23, 2009 4:18 PM"


Here we go...(!)

Would you rather they DIDN'T donate the hams?????

Merry Christmas, Scrooge.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like they are getting free publicity for those hams which is quite different than "no thought of getting something in return."

How utterly demonic of them! They are evil, I tell you! Evilllllllllllll!!!!!

Dawson said...

For a writer who reminds us of the importance of sunrises.

The world, our world, is depleted, impoverished enough. Away with all duplicates of it, until we again experience more immediately what we have.

Susan Sontag
Against Interpretation and Other Essays

Anonymous said...

"Would you rather they DIDN'T donate the hams?????"

I'd rather they didn't brag about it!

Anonymous said...

"Would you rather they DIDN'T donate the hams?????"

I'd rather they didn't brag about it!


Why, because you hate that feeling of cognitive dissonance when corporations don't conform to your distorted prejudiced presumptions about them?

Anonymous said...

December 24, 2009 8:50 AM

"Why, because you hate that feeling of cognitive dissonance when corporations don't conform to your distorted prejudiced presumptions about them?"

What cognitive dissonance? Corporate giving completely conforms to my analysis that they act in their own self interest and seek publicity and community good-will by publicly and loudly giving gifts to the less unfortunate. A graphic example of expected corporate behavior. I expect corporations to brag about their giving and..... they brag about their giving. Are you sure you know what cognitive dissonance is?

Anonymous said...

Since corporations a fictional legal persons and not human these Frankenstein monsters have no capacity for empathy, sympathy nor altruism, characteristics that defines the highest aspirations of humanity.

Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding. Wisdom is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her (Proverbs iii 13, 18 and 17 rearranged)

Anonymous said...

You might as well assert that all human actions are similarly motivated by self interest. (Maybe you do).

Your pinched view assumes that all the humans behind the acts of corporate philanthropy are acting purely out of corporate interest and that their own personal feelings about charitable giving do not enter into the equation. And I can tell you from experience, that assumption is far from accurate.

Anonymous said...

Dawson quoted: "The world, our world, is depleted, impoverished enough. Away with all duplicates of it, until we again experience more immediately what we have." Susan Sontag

It sounds like Sontag is not only against interpretation, but the technological mediators duplicating the world as well. It that your take Dawson and do you agree?

Anonymous said...

How is writing not interpreting?

Anonymous said...

"Your pinched view assumes that all the humans behind the acts of corporate philanthropy are acting purely out of corporate interest and that their own personal feelings about charitable giving do not enter into the equation."

Your assertion is not correct for the humans behind corporate giving may freely and anonymously give to express their personal feelings. If they act as a corporate body they are obligated to act in the best interests of the corporation, regardless of personal feelings and that interest demands the corporate act of "selflessness" get the public attention and good will for such giving.

I think your phrase "Humans behind" aptly expresses the relationship of humans to corporate "Persons".

Anonymous said...

December 24, 2009 9:45 AM

"How is writing not interpreting?"

Or thinking?

Anonymous said...

Over the years I have noticed the PBS acknowledgments of corporate program support has gone from a plain text acknowledgment to full blown multimedia adverts. I'm sure corporate pressure for greater recognition played not part at all. Humans? That would be the text "viewers like you".

Anonymous said...

Joan said: "as one saying goes, more presence and less presents." Joan do you happen to know attribution for that saying? I like it!

Dawson said...

It sounds like Sontag is not only against interpretation, but the technological mediators duplicating the world as well. It that your take Dawson and do you agree?

That quotation from an authentic writer was passed by a reader to another authentic writer.

My take is that we all need to take more walks at sunrise. Tomorrow morning would be a good time to start.

Anonymous said...

"How is writing not interpreting?"

Or thinking?


Writing is thinking. - Kierkegaard

Anonymous said...

Your assertion is not correct for the humans behind corporate giving may freely and anonymously give to express their personal feelings. If they act as a corporate body they are obligated to act in the best interests of the corporation, regardless of personal feelings

Ha! You've obviously never actually worked for a corporation! Or, if you did, all of your co-workers secretly, or not-so-secretly, thought you were a pathetic jerk.

Anonymous said...

December 24, 2009 10:24 AM

please, learn how to do your own research it really isn't that difficult

Joan really isn't that good at it (based on my observations of her writing), so try it yourself.

Milton Friedman said...

Your assertion is not correct for the humans behind corporate giving may freely and anonymously give to express their personal feelings. If they act as a corporate body they are obligated to act in the best interests of the corporation, regardless of personal feelings

If you want to get hyper-technical, corporations shouldn't be giving anything at all. While Milton Friedman strongly believed in and encouraged individual philanthropy, he was a sharp critic of much corporate giving, and in particular of giving based on the concept of “corporate social responsibility.” In a famous article in the New York Times Magazine, Friedman wrote that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” The corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business, its stockholders, and Friedman held that management does not have the right to spend owners’ money for any purpose other than to advance the interests of the business.

Anonymous said...

"If you want to get hyper-technical"

By that do you mean following corporate bylaws?

Anonymous said...

December 24, 2009 8:24 PM said,

"Ha! You've obviously never actually worked for a corporation! Or, if you did, all of your co-workers secretly, or not-so-secretly, thought you were a pathetic jerk."

Stop projecting how poeple feel about you onto others in lieu of intelligent commentary, or even more people may think you a jerk. I do!

Anonymous said...

"Stop projecting how poeple feel about you onto others in lieu of intelligent commentary, or even more people may think you a jerk. I do!"

Talk about "in lieu of intelligent commentary".

Anonymous said...

"If you want to get hyper-technical"

By that do you mean following corporate bylaws?


which corporate bylaw would that be?