Christmas Giving: A Poem to Ponder

Christmas Giving

The busy Christmas shopper

Considers it is proper

To join the crowd and rush into the thickest of the fray

And soak his summer wages

In quick, successive stages

To buy some presents for his friends on happy Christmas day.

The age in which we're living

Is an awful time for giving,

But the spirit that is prompting it may be entirely wrong;

Too often Christmas shopping

Is a sort of Christmas swapping

In a sort of favored circle where they pass the gifts along.

If I buy my aunts and cousins

Costly trinkets by the dozens

Or present my wealthy neighbor with a silver spittereen,

'Tis because of expectation

That there'll be reciprocation,

And I'll get a handsome runabout, propelled by gasoline.

The fellow who is needy,

Whose duds are old and seedy,

Gets little out of Christmas but a fresh supply of woes;

His children know no Santy

For his means are very scanty

And every cent that he can make must go for food and clothes.

The real Christmas giving

That makes this life worth living

And shows that we are any use in this old world of care

Is to give where it is needing

And pass not by unheeding

The wants of those around us who do not get their share.

Some humble, little present

Or a smile that's warm and pleasant

Will please a child or cheer those hearts that oft for kindness yearn

And will give more real pleasure

Than a ton of costly treasure

That we send our friends, expecting something better in return.

Albert Stroud