The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas provide me with an annual context for reflection on the relationship of entitlement to ingratitude.

Thanksgiving, of course, puts the accent where it should be – on giving, saying and doing thanks. Men and women of faith look to God first and foremost for expressions of gratitude on Thanksgiving Day.

Even nonbelievers, I suspect, welcome this American invention of a secular feast day for the occasion it provides to look left and right, if not up to heaven, to say thanks for benefits, if not blessings; and for good luck, if not the generosity of the good Lord.

Once in the thanks-saying, thanks-giving, thanks-doing mood of late November, it is quite literally a short step to Christmas, which, one might expect, should be a season of great gratitude.

However, I’ve noticed at Christmastime and in other seasons of the year a rising sense of entitlement in America, especially among the young. I’ve begun to conclude that ingratitude is the infrastructure of entitlement.

St. Ignatius of Loyola once remarked that “ingratitude is at the root of all sinfulness.” He was on to something.

When ingratitude takes over one’s outlook, there is an erosion of a sense of obligation, including moral obligation.

“Much obliged” is a way the old American vernacular had of saying thanks. If you have nothing to be thankful for, i.e., if you feel entitled to everything you have and might receive, you are unencumbered by a sense of any obligation. You are free to be your selfish, solipsistic, narcissistic self.

Total self-absorption is another word for sin.

A decade or more ago I found myself describing students I was then meeting in the college classroom as characterized by a sense of entitlement. They “deserved” good grades, good health, good jobs, the best of everything the world had to offer.

Cultural reinforcement for this attitude of entitlement came and continues to come through their entertainment and advertising, their words and music, their images and apparel. There are cures for all their ills, solutions for all their problems, answers (with or without the help of a search engine) to all their questions.

It is all within reach. It is theirs for the taking. No need to say thanks.

This outlook has seeped down into high school and middle school – to the teens and “tweens” who never say thanks.

So, what did you get for Christmas? Now that you’ve got it, are you happier than before? Are you disappointed that it wasn’t what you really wanted or, worse, that it is not as good as something someone you know has received?

Many years ago I pressed a child for a working definition of the word gift. “A gift is when somebody gives you something,” she said.

What if I had loaned you a dollar earlier and now I’m giving it back? Here, take the dollar. Is that a gift? It fits your definition.

A moment’s pondering prompted the youngster to revise her definition and say, “A gift is when you get something you don’t deserve.”

How true. How very appropriate for Christmas reflection. What a positive indicator that we have, through an awareness of gratitude, a way of protecting ourselves from the virus of entitlement.

Christmas will be a good deal merrier and happier for all if we realize that the gifts we exchange are not only undeserved, but symbols to remind us that Christmas is a worldwide celebration of the gift of salvation to which none of us has a claim, except through our faith in Christ Jesus the Lord.