As the Yuletide approaches, this is a subtle reminder. I found myself musing. Another year is ending, while the next commences. It is delightful to know that Christmas is the most celebrated event of the year.
Permit me to interject that the subject of discourse here is far from the Christmassy feeling. It is a pointer to a subject most dreaded.
The culture of boxing and unboxing dates back. In the eighteenth century, when Queen Victoria ruled Great Britain, the culture of boxing gifts and giving folks spread like wildfire.
In her 63 years of reign, she was known to wrap gifts in boxes and to present them to her subjects the day after Christmas.
This gesture then spread to other nations and continents of the world. Families, friends, associates, and others appreciate loved ones by doing so.
Why are gifts boxed? What is wrong in giving nude gifts? Why do we take the pain to wrap or box, Christmas, wedding, birthday, push gifts. Yes, push gifts are now common in our climes.
The dynamics of human intriguing. Married men and baby dads buy gifts for their women at the arrival of their newborns. Women get push gifts in boxes and sometimes could be nude gifts like cash, cars, inta alia. Such gifts are precious and memorable. What then is the big deal of boxing gifts, I ask again?
Suspence is a viable tool in filmmaking. The more curious you become, the more interesting you are. You stay glued until you get to see the end. The same applies to unboxing gifts.
The moments spent in unboxing remain golden. Thoughts go haywire and the mind pounds. The mix of anxiety, pleasure, and discovery are compelling. You don’t stop until you have opened the last layer. That feeling makes one ecstatic. It is an unexplainable height. Hidden treasures are unravelled. Lol!
I recently got a gift from a dear friend. The instruction was for me not to open till she left. She lingered for about thirty minutes. Those minutes were one of the longest of my life!
Human beings are like gift boxes. We all come with multifarious designs and assemblage. We are all gifted in many ways. It takes unwrapping to get to our giftings and peculiarities. We are gifts to ourselves and to one another. The reason you miss your friends, families, and people you do not see often is simply because they function in ways no other people can.
Ironically, we all came here nude. No box! Our shrills and cries were objects that announced our arrival. Shortly after, we get boxed up, with layers of nappies, clothes, and flannels.
The boxing continues till adulthood, when we get entangled with the rat race. We keep up appearances and strive to measure up with friends and the society at large. We get busy, so busy that we forget to reflect often on how we came empty.
We struggle daily to achieve our dreams and targets. We meet them, and we push the bar again. We live to work, plough, and distribute. Some of us get so layered that the real gift in the box is so thin, just a threadbare. Yet, we prefer to add more to the box than the gift inherent.
My golden muse today is clear. Boxing up may not be altogether bad. It is a prerequisite for survival. However, remember to nurture the real and enduring gift. Your life!
When the gift eventually gets unboxed, what is left of you when you can no longer right the wrong?
The true gift obviously isn’t those boxes. The actual gift is the unboxed item. Your life and mine!
Pay attention to the content. Enrich the content and ensure that when unboxed, the lifeless body finds enduring peace. In a place shrills and cries fade out. Death, remains a dreadful thing. Yet, it is inevitable. It is better to approach it with a level of preparedness. I hate to burst your bubbles. Death, isn’t an end. On the contrary, it is the beginning of another era.
Ebunoluwa Ibibo
@Golden muse.
