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Holiday season?

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Something cool happening with my family. We're not buying each other presents. Well we'll all get something for the 2 year-old but we're not doing our traditional exchange of gifts among the adults - which almost always ends up being gift cards (just like money except less convenient!) or else people buying stuff for themselves and then letting someone give it to them.

It's all so lame. It really is. I have been passively lobbying to cut it out for years. I'm happy to just get together and have a nice meal. But somehow this year, it has happened. And I didn't even have to suggest it. It was my sister's idea. :megaman:



Only question is my mom. I sensed some disillusionment in her going along with my sister's plan. I think she might like the old tradition, lame as it might seem to me, but she just didn't want to be argumentative. So we'll see if there is any fallout from that.
 
I suggested with my siblings that we not buy gifts for each other, but continue with our parents and the niece. My sister had me on speaker phone while I was suggesting this and my mother heard. She was horrified. She said that it was a mean idea.

I'm not going to be around the family for Christmas, so it's just one less stress for everyone with mailing out things for the black sheep of the family that moved away.
 
Yeah moms. That's mainly why I never pushed my evil plan to scrap the gift exchange. Some people really deeply give a shit about this stuff so I figure Christmas is a situation where I need to just go along with the crowd - and I always have. My ex was completely nutso for Christmas. Let her have her way, I figger.

Unfortunately it is looking like our non-gift-exchange is a one year thing only. My sister said she doesn't want Andrew to get the idea that Christmas is just about him so everyone should have gifts in the future.

Why she wants to do it this way this year, I'm not sure.
 
My sister and I had not spoken for years. I bought gifts for her (okay, giftCARDS), but they were returned. We spoke this summer about Christmas and decided not to do anything for each other. I was relaying my conversation with my brother and my brother's girlfriend over the phone and their reaction as she was driving with my mother in the car. When did people just start using speakerphone without warning the other?

I wouldn't have told Mom what we were doing after her initial reaction of, "Don't you dare do that!" I'm officially on the "Worst and Most Selfish Child EVER" list.
 
(technically she would be the one who is selfish in that she expects the whole world to conform to her wants even when people suggest changes that don't actually effect her in any way, but yeah, for the sake of argument, you are pretty horrible.)
 
Don't get me started. My Mom just called to remind me that my GODFATHER still insists on buying me a present. I see the guy once a year at best, haven't seen him in 2 years now. We've never been close and we have nothing to talk about, but he insists on maintaining this awkward non-bond.

I'm 34. I think, should my parents both suddenly explode or something, I'll be able to manage. The odds that I show up at your door, unwashed and unfed, seem pretty slim.

But fine. Get me a bottle of Quebec ice cider. I'll get you some leather gloves. :handshake:

I really wish gift-giving was limited to kids. I don't want anything that needs to be hauled back home.
 
I've sucessfully convinced at least my sibs that we shouldn't exchange traditional new in box gifts. I'm make them some foodstuff (spiced bourbon, homemade pickles, homemade beef jerkey) but i think there will be a lot of passing hand-me-downs, used goods, homemade stuff.

My logic was I want to remove myself a little from the consumerist culture that exists. I have so much junk in my apartment that is new or hardly used and it makes me sick that someone spent even $1 on some of it...
 
Anyway, I'm having a very relaxed time of it this holiday season. Feeling pretty lucky even if it is a 1-year amnesty only. (Not that buying 6 gift cards or whatever is that much of a hardship. It's more the stupidity of it than the effort that bothers me).

But for the here and now ----> nice.

Just need to remember to get something for the little whippersnapper. Don't get too relaxed and forget that.

In fact while I'm talking about it, let's put a trip to Mastermind on my to-do calendar for Monday . . .



Done. :greencheck:

Making things happen at gamelive. Most excellent.
 
I had been driving up to visit my family, but stopped that a few years ago. I hate driving in the snow and I can't fly with my neurotic dog (and boarding her is PAINFUL - she doesn't do well). I visit in the summer. I prefer to spend my Christmas stress-free, alone, and not having to deal with questions regarding my personal life.
 
I call it Christmas. Mostly because I find it factually incorrect and a tad awkward to refer to it as a Holiday Tree. However seeing that it has been rejected as both a pagan and Christian tradition makes me smile because some people will get upset over the most insignificant of things.
 
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