Gift Giving During the Winter Solstice
Underpinnings Throughout my life, I have questioned the economics of gift giving. What aroused my interest initially was the economics of gift giving during the winter months. Why would a family risk exhausting their resources during the most barren and trepidatious times of the year? For me, it would make more sense to give gifts to members of the community during times of plenty, such as mid-summer, or the end of harvest season. In my search for an answer to the problem of "Black Friday," I have found that the term is used anachronistically; the spirit of gift giving during those long winter months has long been forgotten. A wide array of information could (and should) be covered in our analysis of gift giving, specifically why it was traditionally done on or around the Winter Solstice. For my purposes, I will elucidate those issues which are core to my argument that America's gift giving culture is no longer rooted in the deep theological grounds that it