To Buy or Not to Buy by Kandy Derden

♪♫♫♪♪♪ ‘Tis the season to go shopping . . . ♪♪♪♪♪ Buy buy buy buy buy, buy buy buy BUY! ♪♪♪ ♪ . . . or so the merchants want you to think.

To buy, or not to buy . . . That is the question.

Over the years, I’ve harbored several Christmas philosophies and in retrospect, each one had its good and bad sides.

As a child, I didn’t buy Christmas gifts because of my age and lack of funds. With time, and saved allowance money, I was able to participate in both receiving and giving.

Then the adult years hit. I enjoyed earning my own money and being able to spend it on loved ones without having to check with someone else first. Planning surprises is easier that way.

I probably reached Christmas maturity the year I was living several states away from my family. I began planning in September, keeping in mind as I shopped how little space I would have in my suitcase. Gifts needed to be small, flat and easy to pack. I bought my plane ticket in October and started wrapping (minus any bows) in November.

When I began packing for my return trip, I discovered a new aspect of the holiday I had never encountered before. I had given not one single thought to any items I would receive. Therefore, I didn’t have a plan for how to get them all into my luggage. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to my roommate. She put one of her packed suitcases inside another, thus providing her with a spare tote for all her return trip extras.

Marriage brought about a whole new layer of concern for Christmas traditions. Now there were extra people on my list and more events and gatherings to schedule. Alas, one by one, our numbers have diminished, leaving an emptiness no amount of shopping therapy can heal. However, as is the nature of such, the next generation quickly expanded to help carry on holiday traditions.

With retirement comes fixed income and much consternation when trimming our list. In afterthought, it was remarkably easy the year we announced no gift giving except for the children. One year I began to think Scrooge had the right idea and chose not to participate in any Christmas traditions. Words can’t explain fully but I’m going to give it a try anyway. That was just one

year ago. I was not in the planning mood. I was not in the shopping mood. And I certainly wasn’t in the cooking, cleaning and hosting mood! But as so often happens, God had other ideas. A couple of weeks before Christmas, a tornado swept through several towns in Kentucky. Being a member of a disaster relief team, with no plans for the holidays, I signed up to go for Christmas week. This allowed other volunteers to go home for time with their families.

Most of the volunteer work was suspended and over 90 % of the workers went home leaving less than twenty of us to keep the essential services available. With a little help, we managed to put together a fairly respectable turkey dinner. But somehow, it just didn’t seem right to serve it in a Styrofoam to-go box.

That’s where I come in. You see, with over twenty years of experience as a disaster relief volunteer, I’ve learned how to become what I call a scrounge extraordinaire. A local church which escaped any damage was our headquarters. They had told us to use whatever we needed. So I went exploring. Their kitchen was sell-stocked plus their pantry was home to assorted decorations, paper products and leftovers. I found some table decorations and holiday napkins from a prior event. There was even some dinnerware, disposable but more appealing to the eye than what we had been using. We couldn’t find candles, but there were fresh flowers and a punchbowl. When another volunteer unexpectedly found herself with extra time on her hands, she jumped in to help by procuring some leftover wrapping paper to use as table cover.

Our workers were too tired to care by the time they arrived for dinner, but we could see the surprise on their faces and then the gratitude for the opportunity to celebrate. We told some silly seasonal riddles and sang a couple of carols. This time, we didn’t eat; we dined! That’s how we turned eighteen strangers into a family, even if only for a short time.

When I returned in January, of course the usual conversations took place. “Ready to go back to work? Have a nice Christmas? What did you do?” Etc.

You should have seen the expressions of confusion when I told them we threw a dinner party in the middle of a disaster.

They didn’t understand. But talking with so many resilient locals in the midst of so much devastation, I realized something. They were more concerned with caring for their neighbors than being self-centered and worried for their future. It reminded me of an expression I heard years ago. It was as if God had smacked me over the head with a dead fish and said, “See how good you have it?” That snapped me out of my pity party and then came the insight into the transition Scrooge experienced. This year, after taking a few years off, I think I’m ready to get back with the program and share some tokens with my loved ones. They just might need to see a little reminder occasionally of how much they mean to me.

My regular readers may notice there is no recipe this month. Perhaps not the kind involving food, but here is the recipe for a great Christmas: be thankful for what you have and who you have. If you choose to express it through spending, feel free. If not, use your time for worship and gratitude.

Celebrate any way you wish. Even if it costs you money.