Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Holiday Rhetoric-JF
















Gifts


Typically, when most of the people I know, including myself, think of the word, “gifts,” we think of items given from one person to another in care. When I think of gifts, I personally think of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. As a larger group though, we all consider gifts to be wrapped presents given by the (spoiler alert!) fictitious Santa Clause/Father Christmas/St. Nicholas/Kris Kringle to children as a reward for their good deeds. Essentially, gifts are associated with winter, particularly, the Christmas holiday. As a child, I was always told that the giving of gifts originated with the three Wise Men bringing gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby Christ. I was once told that Santa was Jesus in disguise, and that seemed to make perfect sense to me when I was at that young age. Regardless of my thoughts of gifts, everyone to whom I’ve mentioned the word seems to have the same idea. Ideally however, I think many should have a different idea when that word is stated.

 

In my opinion, every day on Earth as a human being is a, “gift.” Whether you are religious or not, we can all agree that someone else created us (God, parents, scientists, etc). First, being human is a gift considering we’re the most advanced species on the planet. Second, we (at least all of us on the blog) are American; by this I mean to ask, when was the last time your life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness was genuinely threatened? As an American human, we have the greatest gift in comparison to all other people. Sadly, instead of being content with this great gift we have all been given, we trample each other to get sales or cry when we don’t get whatever present we wanted. By holding this false definition of gift, we throw this true gift we have away. If we continue this selfish behavior, I have no doubt that we will lose our true gift. I implore all of you this holiday season not to overlook our true gift. It certainly wouldn’t hurt any of us if we took some more time to be thankful rather than needful (and, hey, look at it this way: If you spend all your time being thankful, you may be able to use that as an excuse for not giving any presents).
 
Word count: 394
Picture count: 2
Sarcasm count: a lot

3 comments:

  1. Pictures obtained via Yahoo images. Search gifts

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  2. Now that you have ruined my idea about Santa Clause and have left me with the question who is eating the cookies I leave every year, I think it is of significance if I comment on this post. I completely agree with this thought. Although you are sarcastic in this post, the sentimental value is some what high. People every year base their happiness off of how many shiny wrappers are under that fake Christmas tree that my cat tries to eat without getting shocked by the gnawing of a bulb. What if we all just got big boxes, wrapping them all pretty, and inside it said "Have a great day, your inner genuis is shining through!" Somehow I think my story of the gun shot during Christmas time would be a world wide thing. People usually don't appreciate the little things in life, instead what can make their lives better for the next couple of seconds.

    karah
    Word count 157

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  3. How dare you say that you are given these rights if you are an American human. If you are born in Mexico you are only given these rights if you manage to sneak into the United States of America and have children there. Although one slip up on referring to this country as America is to be expected when so many people call it that these days, even though it should not be the case. You are correct in saying that there are many gifts that we don’t value as we should. This is what happens in a country like ours though. It is hard to make someone value something they have always had. For instance I was born without smelling so I know what it is like to go through trials most do not simply because I have lacked something since birth. I am not comparing freedom to smelling, but I am saying how we value such things is similar.

    Codie Rome (161)

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