I am the blacksheep in my family this year and I have siblings and mother pissed off at me. All because I merely suggested we not do gift exchanges this year....at all. I am doing this b/c I felt my mother tends to go overboard at Christmas and spend way too much money that she doesn't have which she then borrows. My other 2 siblings (not the complete worthless schmo) bought in with this idea and now I'm the Grinch for getting them to agree. I told her she should take whatever money she was planning on spending on me and Leah and instead get herself something nice or hell come spend Christmas with me.

I don't see the need or reason to spend several hundred dollars just b/c it is Christmas. It's like I am this bad person b/c I want to save money this year and not throw it after unnecessary things. We do a program at work where we adopt a family in need and basically give them a Christmas. I felt this was a more worthy cause for my money this year and so that is where I funneled my money. To me helping a single mother who has 4 kids who just lost their father to cancer is more in line with how Christmas should be. And their needs are basic and not superficial stuff.

I know it ultimately boils down my mom expecting my brother and I to basically fund her frivolous wants to buy a bunch of shit for people with money we give her. I would be more apt to give her money if I felt like she used it properly. I mean we're talking about someone who basically says "now that Obama is in office I can put food on my table, I couldn't do that when Bush was in office" My reply? It's not up to either of them to put the food on your table and you'd have a better chance at making it if you didn't let my other brother and his daughter mooch you dry.

Am I wrong in this thinking? I am just so fed up with people expecting/demanding handouts and questioning my motives for how I spend the money that I earn. I should not be required to justify to them how or why I choose to spend it when they are leeches on the system. Maybe I am a grinch, or maybe I'm just tired of people living outside their means and always looking to someone else to cover their mistakes =\

My family hasn't done Christmas presents for adults in years. It's better.

I am deployed yet again, so another "special" DFAC meal and a call home at some scary hour of the day local time. Its more about the day off to get some rest than the whole hooplah that is Christmas most of the time. I will try to send off gifts of some kind. Some make it there in time. Some don't, but people tend to be pretty flexible as long as I call on the actual holiday. If I had younger kids it would be alot more exciting....and suck alot more to be deployed far away on the Holidays. It makes me glad I am waiting on the family until after the military obligation is done and then I can re-discover Christmas all over again.

My family hasn't done Christmas presents for adults in years. It's better.

Yeah, I've been pushing to do this for years and it's like OMG how dare you suggest it?

Presents are mainly for the kids.

As for me, I got my mom a few things from the points on my credit card I'm trying to still pay off. She's a Pittsburg Steelers fan, and the card is affiliated with the NFL, so she's getting a Steelers fleece throw and a woman's Steelers polo.
My son wants the new Pokemon game for his Wii. So it looks like I'll be getting off cheaply this year.

To me it's more about spending time together as a family, rather than buying things.

Well the adults in our family exchange small relatively inexpensive gifts, but I like to go overboard on my kids :)

One of the biggest / best gifts of this year will probably be the Rockband II Ion drums.... but I must say that I just *may* play them also :)

Fild, I laughed at the Obama reference in your original post :) To quote Bugs Bunny "what a maroon!"

If I ever start giving away really expensive gifts I either won the lottery or am about to die.

Unfortunately that mentality is rampant in that part of the country. It saddens me that my own mother is spewing it, but she's just repeating it.

I'm going to Mexico for a week. We all just bought our own tickets and hotel and food (its an all inclusive) for ourselves instead of buying gifts for each other.

My dad also bought me a bunch of power tools to work on my house, gave them to me a few weeks ago, and called it a Christmas present since he's not invited to Mexico :)

The thing that sucks is that I've got 3 families to visit every Christmas all accross the Northeast. My Mom and Step Dad in New Jersey, my Dad and Step Mom in Philadelphia, and my girlfriend's family here in DC. Trying to get to all three, plus work the football games that always fall on these holidays, and not go crazy in the process nearly kills me every year.

Pretty average Christmas this year. We've finally got the apartment properly decorated and just the way we want it after a year or so - so we're going to my in-laws for christmas eve party, then my parent's for christmas day, but then we're hosting a big party here on Boxing Day, family, friends, colleagues, etc. Blowing quite a bit of dollar on it too so should be a nice shin-dig. Maybe I'll stick some photo's up on here? :P

Pretty average Christmas this year. We've finally got the apartment properly decorated and just the way we want it after a year or so - so we're going to my in-laws for christmas eve party, then my parent's for christmas day, but then we're hosting a big party here on Boxing Day, family, friends, colleagues, etc. Blowing quite a bit of dollar on it too so should be a nice shin-dig. Maybe I'll stick some photo's up on here? :P


Wait....so it took you a year to decorate for Christmas and after all that you're going somewhere else to celebrate? Well that was a waste of a year.

You are hosting a boxing party? Do people enjoy that? Is there a champion crowned at the end of the day? Why are you using dollars instead of Pound Sterling? Isn't that illegal?

Dear Rover:

'Boxing Day' doesn't refer to the *sport* of boxing... but to the practice of the day after Christmas being the day that the aristocracy gave their castoffs to the servants (or people to the less fortunate in general, boxing in the sense of boxing things up to give them away), but I'm guessing by the tone that you knew that :). In this day and age, typically one has a more informal party, leftovers are served or a second more intimate gift exchange is done, or you might go hit the after-Christmas sales, which are a bigger deal, I'm told, in the UK than the US.

When I was a little girl, we didn't *call* it Boxing day, but every December 26th, Mom would make us go through our dressers and closets and gather up of all of our old clothing and toys we didn't play with anymore and bag/box them up to go to Goodwill, reminding us that there were people less fortunate who could use and enjoy those things - we collected in our little blue alms boxes or paper UNICEF boxes every year as well. I guess there was enough Scotch-Irish tradition left in the family in that particular case that even if the name wasn't retained, the practice was...

It's been a pretty rough year economically for both sides of family (Faervas' dad will be unemployed as of Jan 1 (merger/buyout), my mother is taking a pay cut along with all of the remaining store managers in her chain), so we're doing only token presents this year (except for Becky presents, as the princess won't be denied ;) ) and Faervas and I are staying put this Christmas and celebrating at home. My family has *tried* to stop doing adult presents for years (except for stockings), but invariably, the 'cheating' snowball starts and is hard to stop...

Having lost a fair amount of weight this year, I'll be taking a good-sized bag to Goodwill come Dec 26th as well :).

Regards,
Nydia

I already told my son there will be no gift exchanges as far as I am concerned, and that he and his girlfriend should concentrate their gift-giving bent on his Mother's side of the family and his girlfriend's family. (I already have a little gift for them each, but they don't need to know that, heh) I told him we can go out for dinner or something like that.

My Mother and I usually get each other some wine, and because my niece and her two kids are on a more frugal budget these days I am giving gift cards to the niece and her 14 yr old daughter, but will have several toys for the two year old boy.

I also just learned last night that my niece's best friend's husband is getting laid off, and that my Mother, upon hearing the news, provided them with a turkey and all the necessary trimmings to make a meal including a pumpkin pie, so their Thanksgiving will not be a total bust. I will be giving thanks tomorrow for having such a Mother. :)

Last year I talked my parents into ditching the gift giving aspect and putting that money into a family trip to visit some relatives we hadn't seen in a while. I think we all agreed it was a better use of the money. My parents are bad about going overboard on gifts. I'm trying to ween them off of gifts for me completely. I want to try to avoid this aspect of Christmas at least until/if I have kids of my own. Luckily, I also have a girlfriend who shares my thoughts on gift giving.

I've suggested that our family take Christmas gift money and donate it to a charity instead - except for the kids of course, it's fun to get them stuff - and they all reacted negatively. You'd think I was canceling the entire holiday or something.

My wife and I did agree to just buy a joint present for the house together...we settled on a very useful item, a Wii. We're buying each other games for Christmas, rather than more junk we don't need or agonizing over what to get another adult who is largely content with their possessions.

My Christmas "gift" to my family this year is helping them pay for a ski trip that I can't participate in due to injury. I much prefer doing stuff than getting stuff.

The wife and I are just going to do something small with my son, then in January we make our big trip home but the only people getting presents really are the kids. Flights from Texas to Alaska are expensive :p

I have no idea, other than it's another christmas and I'm still alive! :)

Wow, I have never heard of this Boxing day thing. It sounds kind of cool though and yes Halo pics!

I'm gonna go nuts for my daughter as usual. Everyone else can suck it.

My mom and grandma always are what do you want so I tell them the same thing every year a pack of socks a pack of underwear and if they want to spice things up a nice non holiday tie.

The tables have turned I am doing ok financially so I give my parents and grandma things that I know they went without raising me and my step brother. My grandma's gift is usually cash so she can buy what she wants and some other lil trinkets she may want or mention.... It is hard to buy clothes for an 83 year old lady and make it a surprise lol and get something that she will wear! My dad, my brother and I are replacing the tools that were stolen when our house was broken into when we were kids and he did without them. My mom well she gets cash to go shopping with grandma and I always buy her the yearly Barbie doll to go into her doll collection. My aunts uncles cousins get upset because they see me buying my grandma a new stove or washer or freezer when hers have gone out in years past and I do not do lavish things for them, but I feel it is the least I can do for her since she helped my mom raise me till my mom married my step-dad.

I never really want anything for christmas that I do not buy myself. Some people do not seem to understand that hey lets sit around tell stories watch tv and let me feed you a 10000 calorie meal :P and lets just be fat and happy that we are alive and able to get together!

Now when the family does get together we do a gift exchange .... it has rules kids get a kid gift under 10 bucks and they draw a number and get that package. Adults each bring a gift or regift last years gift and we do a silly lil thing of passing the gifts around and trading for gifts. We have 4 gifts that have lasted 12 years now I have the honor of getting the same gift 4 different times in the 10 years that gift has been given lol ... It is nothing extravagant it is mainly a way for the whole family when together to laugh and embarrass someone.

Flights from Texas to Alaska are expensive :p

There has to be a joke in there somewhere!

Wait.. you guys don't call Dec 26th Boxing Day? You got a raw deal. It's almost a big of a deal as Christmas over here.

No, Halo thats more of a big deal in Canada. Typically once Christmas day comes and goes, December 26th is for relaxing and reflecting that another Christmas has gone off with out a hitch or very few hitches since the Holidays really are ALOT of work in the making. That and snacking on left overs and reading any books people gave as gifts.

Snacking on left-overs is indeed the par de excellence of Boxing Day! That and visiting all the second-rate family that you didn't want to see on Christmas Day.

Boxing Day here in Canada is for shopping and travellig to the next Christmas location for the next big dinner! Boxing Day is like the American black Friday except the retailers are trying to dump all of their stock before the January and Feburary duldrums set it. Most people in Canada aren't too excited to go to the mall in -30 C weather hence the major slow down in retail sales in the depth of Winter.

This year we are yet again making the 7 hour trek back down home. I have been here in Ottawa for 14 years and have yet to spend a Christmas here.

With number 2 on the way in February it looks like next year we will be able to spend our first Christmas in Ottawa, there ain't no way I am hauling a 2 1/2 year old plus a 10 month old baby on that crappy 7 hour drive. If we are unlucky with the weather the trip can strecth out to an unbearable 10 - 14 hour drive, BLAH!

The best thing I like about our celebrations is the homemade Eggs Benedict breakfast with REAL peameal bacon (cured in a brine) we have on the 25th. Pure indulgence and the calories get us through to dinner.


Cheers,

No, Halo thats more of a big deal in Canada. Typically once Christmas day comes and goes, December 26th is for relaxing and reflecting that another Christmas has gone off with out a hitch or very few hitches since the Holidays really are ALOT of work in the making. That and snacking on left overs and reading any books people gave as gifts.

Not true, December 26th is the day to take back shit people bought for you that you have no use for!

Not true, December 26th is the day to take back shit people bought for you that you have no use for!


I have a closet downstairs with a shelf devoted to such gifts, like the waffle iron, set of cookware, olive oil dipping cups, a device for vacuum sealing canisters, an onion chopper, a Hamilton Beach chopper, etc.

It is where I go for a gift for those occasions I am invited to some wedding I could care less about; regifting ftw!

You didn't give me a wedding gift. I'll take the vacuum sealing dealy!