It’s nippy outside. As you drive through neighborhoods you notice each house has a touch of magic. That’s right. It’s Christmas time. So bust out that soulful Christmas CD. Buy some eggnog, and get a Snuggie for those of you trying to cuddle by the fireplace. Christmas is usually about getting gifts, stuffing your face and clowning with family. But this year let’s try something different. It is better to give than to receive. Let’s take it a step further.
This Christmas let’s give love, and not the kind of love that happens under the Snuggie by the fireplace, but the kind of love that can change or even save a life. Listening to the song “Give Love on Christmas Day” by The Temptations, I realized that a lot of us have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas.
I know all of us are older and don’t care for gifts that much anymore, but what about the people who don’t get to celebrate Christmas because they have no home, or cannot provide for their family like they want to? That is where we step in, and give them the gift of love. If you see a homeless man on the street and throw him some change, that’s not love. If anything that’s lust.
It’s lust because you temporarily feel pleasure from giving somebody something you feel they wanted, so that you feel good.
Love is inviting that homeless man to your home for dinner, giving that impoverished family sweaters and toys so that they too can have a merry Christmas. That is love. I am not bashing any canned food drives; but, why not give someone a whole dinner?
All you need to do is get some people to sign up and assign each person a certain dish, and then deliver it. I’m sure that family would be appreciative. Their stomachs will be full, and their hearts filled with joy.
Visit a local shelter and see what you can do to help. Just imagine if you had to wake up Christmas morning, it’s barely 30 degrees and all you have to keep you warm is a tattered coat, ripped jeans, and worn shoes.
You stand in line outside a warehouse and watch as cars filled with smiling faces pass by. Once inside, they give you one tray of food, and you don’t have a place to sit. After you eat, even though you are still hungry, you spend Christmas with people who are just as unfortunate. Nobody deserves that, and you have the opportunity to end it.
Just lend a helping hand and give love. Visit an orphanage and spend time with the children who have been abandoned. Adopt a child for Christmas, so they can have a real Christmas with a loving family.
While some of us complain because we didn’t get a new camera, or the newest pair of Jordans for Christmas, think about the rest of the world who woke up Christmas day to a can of corn and was happy, who spent Christmas searching the streets for their mother, or even the people who spend Christmas in jail for stealing a teddy bear to give their daughter. So this Christmas my gift to you is a dare.
I dare you to forget about yourselves for one day. I’m not saying that you can’t have fun or spend time with family. Invite someone who has no family to join you.
Instead of complaining of the toy you didn’t get, give one of yours to a child who has nothing. In other words, I dare you to give love on Christmas day.
Tory R. Wadlington is a sophomore mass communication major from Murrieta, Calf.