A general position on December birthdays (particularly for those of us who hold them) seems to be that its proprietors are easily neglected. We are over-shadowed by Christmas decorations in November and over-looked in December by relatives busy with Christmas errands and office parties. And yet, I suspect that others, like me, have always secretly loved it. In the season of these births, the world was awake, decking the halls, and a great number of them were looking to the birth of another infant. The spirit of Christmas seems a part of our own, the birth of Christ reminding us each year that we, too, were born, that we were fragile, that we were held. For those born in December (and for any who remember their own beginnings in the scenes of Advent), the season offers a time of contemplating infantile beginnings, a lesson in what it means to be human like no other. Stories and celebrations of one’s birth are juxtaposed with a nativity story told long before we were born and one that will continue to be told long after us.

In fact, the story of Christianity is a story filled with nativity scenes. In these stories, we find a God present before we have accomplished anything and longing to gather us long before we know it is happening. Thus David can pray, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” And God can say to the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” And those who witnessed the miracle of Elizabeth and Zechariah can rightly exclaim God’s hand upon the child before that child could say his own name: “The neighbors were all filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, ‘What then is this child going to be?’ For the Lord’s hand was with him.”(1)

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One of the global issues that marked the twenty-first century thus far is the refugee crisis. Some estimates place the number of globally displaced people at close to sixty million. Refugees are men, women, and children compelled to move across political borders because of war, famine, natural disaster, ethnic cleansing, genocide, religious persecution, or the prospect of imprisonment or death at the hands of despotic regimes.

The latest refugee issue making headlines is the Rohingya crisis. According to United Nations estimates, about 146,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from violence in Myanmar since August 25, 2017. Issues surrounding the refugee crisis are more complex than the rhetoric on social media and news channels would have us believe. Governments of various countries responded to this crisis based on their political affiliations, economic conditions, and various other factors. Shiv Visvanathan, a noted sociologist, reacting to India’s stance towards Rohingya refugees writes: “Sadly, India missed the leadership and compassion of a Mother Teresa. She would have stepped out and offered some care and relief to them, stirring the Indian middle class into some acts of caring.”(1)

Surely the complexities of the refugee crisis are many and unique to each country. And yet, there are some things that might be considered regardless. In the Bible, God commands his people Israel to always remember who they were: a once-enslaved people set free by God. As such, they were to treat strangers and sojourners with kindness. “You shall love the strangers” exhorts Yahweh, “for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.”(2) Vinoth Ramachandra writes, “It is Yahweh’s character to take delight in loving the ‘others,’ especially those who are economically and socially vulnerable. Israel was a nation of ‘others’ in Egypt, scapegoated in acts of xenophobic violence when national fortunes declined. So Yahweh, true to his character, loved them and rescued them from their oppression. Having experienced Yahweh’s love for the alien, they now reflect Yahweh’s character by loving the aliens among them.”(3)

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The ethics of regifting is always a hot discussion at Christmastime and the weeks that follow our various office parties and family exchanges. Apparently, there are those who insist that regifting is a tawdry practice, and there are those who have practiced it for years and see no harm. For those who might not be familiar with the concept, Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary offers a helpful definition: To regift is “to give an unwanted gift to someone else” or “to give as a gift something one previously received as a gift.” In any case, two out of three people say they have either regifted or are considering regifting. And while there are no doubt many successful regifters among us, there are also unfortunate stories to show for the less successful, which make the discussion entertaining. Imagine opening the very gift you had given your mother-in-law a year earlier.

The concept of regifting is similar to a word coined by J.R.R. Tolkien in The Hobbit. “Anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a mathom,” writes Tolkien. “Their dwellings were apt to become rather crowded with mathoms, and many of the presents that passed from hand to hand were of that sort.” Whether Hobbit or human, regifting is evidently nothing new.

Even so, when a colleague of mine referred to Christmas as the “season of regifting,” I was certain he had been the victim of too many unfortunate gift exchanges. Except he wasn’t talking about unwanted scarves or random gift-cards. He was talking about the mysterious gift that is resurrected each Christmas and presented again as if new. Year after year, we reopen the story of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the magi, and the star. “God is a regifter,” he said. The child is the gift.

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