It seems to me that this Christmas the gifts are smaller than usual. I don’t mean fewer; I mean physically smaller. And I think this is because the giving of gift certificates – better known in the retail industry as gift cards – has become more acceptable and prevalent. Or maybe they became prevalent, and so they became acceptable.

No matter. Gift cards are here to stay.

Once it was considered gauche to give money when one could present an actual gift wrapped with festive paper, something solid to hang on to. But no more. Today, both consumers and retailers have latched onto the notion of giving a gift card, so that the recipient can purchase the gift of choice, instead of returning the giver’s idea of such a gift.

It definitely has merits. Gift cards remove the fretting and fuming about what to buy. They can be bought at the last minute, online or in stores. They are small to wrap and don’t require extra ribbon or tape.

At the same time, are they as thoughtful? Do they convey the same message as an actual gift that may or may not suit the recipient but which the giver took time and energy to purchase and wrap? Are they personal enough?

I don’t have definitive answers for these questions; I only know that when I use gift cards it’s because I haven’t paid special attention to comments from those I’m gifting as to what they like or need. So, in a way, it’s the lazy way out. And maybe with all the hustle and bustle at this time of year, that’s what gift cards really have going for them.

I’ve always thought that being bilingual was a tremendous asset, one that most people in our country do not appreciate. We live in a land so vast that one can go for miles and find people who still speak the same language. It’s not like this in Western or Eastern Europe or in the Far East.

Currently, there is an influx of Spanish speaking peoples to the United States; and there is a movement to encourage our country to be bilingual – English and Spanish side by side. There is also an opposing movement to legislate for English as the official language of our country and thus require everyone to learn it.

I can see both sides of this debate. Although we’ve been an English-speaking country for a couple centuries, it’s possible that having two languages is in the future is the best decision. And, given the various language populations, it’s also possible that Spanish – over French or German or Vietnamese – would be the one to choose.

Case in point: The Washington Post reported this week that a sixteen-year-old student named Zach Rubio was suspended from his school for speaking Spanish in the hallway to another student who had addressed him in Spanish. The article doesn’t say whether there is an official school policy about speaking only English, but Rubio said he answered in Spanish because he was addressed in that language.

The article went on to note that Rubio speaks flawless English, as well as the Spanish of his immigrant parents, without the slightest accent. Which leads me to believe he is truly bilingual. In my viewpoint, that makes him more able to communicate with different peoples.

So what is the problem here? Why was he suspended? Did he get into a fight? Was he rude to some authority figure? Apparently not. His only “crime” was that he spoke Spanish.

I think the principal overreacted and didn’t even consider the value of being able to speak two languages. The Swiss have three official national languages, and I imagine other countries have more than one. Would we lose our American identity if we admitted that maybe, just maybe, being a bilingual culture would be a good thing? I’m still pondering the answer, but I do know that speaking Spanish in a high school hallway should not be cause for suspension.