Useless Giving

In 1913, a man founded The Santa Claus Association, the purpose of which was to answer all the letters to Santa Claus the US Postal Service received in the state of New York. Eventually there would be many Santa Claus Associations throughout the US and Canada, people volunteering hours of their time throughout the holidays to not only answer the letters but also provide needy children with gifts. Although it would seem the founder of this association created it to line his own pockets, he certainly wasn’t the only person during that time in history to create a “501(c)3” in order to get rich. Just as there are today.

 

The book I read this past year about this man and his association was quite interesting for various reasons. For one, it gave me an idea of just how many such “associations” came into being around the time of World War I until the Great Depression. At the time, America was booming with wealth and prosperity. People felt generous and wanted to donate to causes that would help the less fortunate. So, both sincere and disingenuous people created “associations”. The first helped other, the latter helped themselves.

 

And then there were the associations who arose in order to monitor the first set of associations. You know: people who didn’t want their neighbors being too sincere…or too disingenuous…whichever. It didn’t really matter as long as said people got to tell other people what they could and could not do. 

 

Honestly, times haven’t changed much at all.

 

A lot of these “monitoring associations” were keeping their eye on “Santa Claus” before all was said and done. And I had to stop and read the name of one of them twice. The Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving. Yes, please read that twice.

 

Now if you google this, you will actually come up with a lot of information on this society, and quite a bit of support that it should be revived. Founded in 1912 by a group of wealthy, philanthropic women (including one of J.P. Morgan’s daughters), it’s purpose was to put a stop the unnecessary Christmas-related materialism as well as employees giving gifts to management in exchange for workplace favors. Intended mostly as another arm of the feminist movement (women employees would need to dish out more expensive gifts than their male counterparts for favors), at one point even Theodore Roosevelt became a member. His reason for joining? To point people in a direction of sincere giving vs. materialism or giving in hopes of getting something in return.

 

 The movement wouldn’t last terribly long thanks to the start of World War I and store’s advertising departments turning the movement on it’s head by suggesting flyers full of “useful” gifts in order to prevent “useless” giving. And while women clerks hoping to rise above selling shirtwaists for twelve hours a day made up the bulk of the society’s membership, the leaders were wealthy and eventually had more important things to do. Now the society is nothing more than something fun to google.

 

Despite its questionable foundation, the ridiculous name made me stop and think. Useless Giving? Is there such a thing? Well, certainly there is. As Solomon so wisely proclaims throughout the entire book of Ecclesiastes, life is vain. We do all sort of things that are quite useless. Why should our giving being any different? And yet, shouldn’t it be different? If my giving comes from a sincere desire to be generous and bless someone else, it shouldn’t be useless. I shouldn’t give with a purpose of getting something in return. Nor should I donate to causes that have no real purpose or any desire to help others. And while I certainly give my children (and others) gifts that offer little more than pure enjoyment, I try not to do so to an extreme. Because what I give, just as how I spend my time, should be useful. It should encourage someone else, or help meet a need, or bring someone a little joy. For, in the end, what I have to give comes from my Heavenly Father who generously gave it to me. And He would never give me anything useless.

 

So, when Christmas rolls around again and you’re thinking about giving someone that watermelon slicer because it gets five-star reviews on Amazon and they did buy a watermelon for the 4^thof July picnic…well, you might want to ask yourself if that’s useless or useful. Because, really, the ice cream maker would get a lot more use. I mean, really, how does one even wrangle a watermelon slicer? I have enough trouble with an apple slicer…