Let’s take the wraps off the tradition of concealing presents under decorative packaging and see if there isn’t a spiritual gift inside.
For starters, we’ll follow history’s paper trail. The first use of gift wrap was in ancient China soon after paper was invented 200 years before the birth of Jesus. Money was the first gift enclosed in the new invention made from rice straws and bamboo fiber, and both the Japanese and Korean cultures also embraced wrapping paper.
In the West, wealthy Victorians wrapped presents in colorful patterned paper, ribbons and lace. Then printing technology improved in the 1890’s and it was finally possible to mass produce decorative, folding paper but, by the early 1900’s, thick, heavy stock was replaced by tissue paper in red, green and white.
In 1917, J.C. Hall and his brother, Rollie, ran out of such paper in their Kansas City store just before Christmas. All Rollie could find in the shop was some decorative paper used to line envelopes, so he put out the large, patterned sheets and charged ten cents each. They sold out in a flash. The next year, the paper was 25 cents for three sheets and, again, it was snapped up. So in 1919, the Hall brothers printed their own Christmas paper and sold it as part of their quickly growing stationery empire — Hallmark.
Until Scotch tape was invented in 1930, gift wrap was secured with string and sealing wax, or small sticky circles sold in packets with some brands of folded paper. As for motifs, early Christmas paper featured angels, birds and flowers before giving way to more seasonal scenes such as snowflakes, candles and Christmas trees. Today, gift wrap is often unapologetically commercial, promoting movies and TV shows.
And no wonder. North Americans spend almost $3 billion a year on wrapping paper. Gift wrap and decorative bags account for about five million tons of trash annually in the U.S. alone and, in Britain, people discard enough Christmas paper to circle the world nine times. Though gift wrap is expensive, wasteful and trivial, it remains undeniably popular.
That’s especially true, metaphorically, when it comes to “the festive season,” a phrase that, in itself, illustrates the problem. Ask most people what Christmas is all about and they’ll give you the safe and unassailable list: generosity, especially to the poor; getting together with friends and family; giving gifts to those we love; joyful celebration; and peace on earth, good will toward men.
But as worthy as those things might be, they’re little more than spiritual gift wrap at best, and damaging distractions at their worst. The truth is, the authentic Christmas story is not packaged in pretty, Precious Moments sentimentality. Instead, the nativity of the Gospels is heavily wrapped in ugly scandal and social schism on the grandest scale.
A girl likely no older than 14 is pregnant with a child she claims is fathered by God himself. Dismissed as a slut by most, the young teen gives birth far from home and family in a dank, dirty animal shelter surrounded, almost certainly, by the commotion of restless beats, the smell of farm urine and her own fear, and the unadulterated pain and uncertainty of delivery. The blood and sweat are barely wiped away before the exhausted mother is visited by shepherds, the coarse outcasts who, in that day, had the same reputation reserved now for carnie workers and petty criminals.
When word gets out, the religious establishment is deeply offended by any suggestion that God’s Chosen One would come in such an unseen, unseemly way. But they miss the point. The arrival of Christ and the salvation He brings is about the Person and His life-changing power, not about the packaging. Jesus came to give us an opportunity to get rid of our repulsive sins that, otherwise, will keep us out of God’s presence for eternity. Christmas finds its true meaning in that other scandal: crucifixion.
But you’ll hear little of that this season. Instead, the focus will be on the ribbon and lace. Today, money is still the emphasis beneath Christmas packaging, and the story of the coming of Jesus now has all the strength and power of tissue paper. We’ve reduced it to a safe, sanitized and sentimental set of cliches and, like toddlers who obsess over the wrapping instead of the gift inside, we settle for the superficial.
This year, we need less Hallmark Christmas and more nail-mark Christmas.