Christmas. An always significant anniversary that marks the end of a year and, like it or not, strongly marks the winter period. For some it is a recurrence of value and faith, for others an annoying consumerist ritual; despite all the rituals of Christmas we are all involved in various ways. I will not dwell on the celebrations, but not even on lunches and dinners and on the theories that underlie them but I would like to address, in my own way, the age-old question of gifts linked to this anniversary.

More than two thousand years after the day this tradition was born, what can we give today at Christmas? It is by no means a simple question, especially in an age of overabundance of supply, where there are all kinds of objects and services, where an exponential level of demand is opposed to it, more and more greedy for new objects to own. So what does a child want for Christmas today? Perhaps he wants what he wants every other day of the year, bombarded as he is by increasingly intrusive advertising and increasingly devoted to creating new, sometimes empty or non-existent needs. And it would be too easy to say “give your time and your presence”, both crushed by the hectic bustle of every day: these are not gifts but daily duties. So what are we giving away this year at Christmas? Let’s try to give something that makes a significant difference, that helps our children, but not only them, to think, reason and make the most of the enormous possibilities of the gift that is our brain, too often flattened by a mass society that it tends towards ever greater homologation, generalization and above all the leveling of thought. In this sense, games that favor the relationship, the group, the exchange, a reality almost obsolete in our days, are welcome. Without wishing to make speeches from the past, the groups of young people intent on pressing on the buttons or on the screens of as many smartphones (which perhaps are not so “smart” …) in perfect silence, put a little sadness. On the contrary, a group of children who maybe even raise their voices around a table while they are intent on finishing a game of a boxed game, arouses an emotion of joy.

Having said that, far be it from me to want to make a crusade against technology, far from it, it helps us and supports us every day by facilitating communications, exchanges even between very distant places. But if we give our children a hug, a caress, a table around which to play together, some healthy laughter, we will make them happier than with a latest fashion smartphone and their joy will be a priceless Christmas gift for us! So let’s take the opportunity of this party to rediscover the beauty of making a gift that goes against the tide, to break the mold a little and create a present in total countertrend.

Who knows if a good game of a board game together with children and grandchildren, young and old, perhaps on Christmas day may not favor the discovery of a different and certainly more precious sociality!

And with these little thoughts, everyone a Merry Christmas, really …