My mother has emphatically told us (kids) that this year, we are not
to buy her or my dad presents for Christmas. They want us to take
that money and spend it on a needy family that they were "given" and
buy them things that they need. A daughter of good friends of theirs
volunteers for a group that tries to provide the necessities of life
to families that they find out about. One family is assigned to any
who want to help them. After reading your post (I haven't caught up
yet, so I haven't seen the thread with Sherry's post that you're
referring to) that I'm going to tell my mom that I don't want
presents, either, and that whatever they would spend on me should go
to the "family".

Now that my parents have two grandchildren to think about, we are going to
stop the madness and concentrate on the people who enkoy Christmas - the
kids. If you ask any of us adults we all just grown and secretly admit we
don't enjoy the season at all - its just one big horrible hassle, fighting
people inthe shops, worrying about what to get and making sure every body
get sthe same value, and don't even *start* me on my ungrateful self centred
rude obnoxious selfish in-laws (oh, wait, I started anyway) that we have to
deal with.

So, for my relatives at least (Joel won't be talked out of spending far too
much on his, he's trying to compensate because their mother passed away and
a father (or stepfather in Joel's case) doesn't give a fig about his
children) each couple is going to buy 1, just one, $20 gift for each of the
two other couples in the family, and concentrate on Cary and his cousin,
Sarah. Of course, that still means I have to figure out what to get Sarah,
who, much like Cary, will be far more interested in the ribbons and wrapping
paper than whatever is on the inside, but at least we won't go nuts this
year.

As to Joel's family, I'm trying very hard to adopt the Christmas spirit with
them and be thankful that I have enough that we can give them something,
despite the fact that they couldn't be bothered to give anything - and I'm
not just talking about material things - in return.

Yowie

Dennis and I have never really been into the whole gift thing.  Sounds
unromantic, but we'd just prefer to buy something for ourselves,
together.  For xmas, we'd much rather get together with friends and
family and bring a nice dish of food, or dessert, or some wine and
have a good time talking.
My parents long ago told me to stop giving them gifts, and they don't
get me anything either.  It's so great, I love it this way.  No
hassles, no pressure.  I can enjoy the season.  I mean, we do bring
them souvenirs from Thailand when we go home.  But we don't send xmas
presents or birthday presents.  And we wouldn't be buying presents if
we still lived there.  It's just too commercial and you never end up
with what you wanted anyway.
--
Britta
Sandpaper kisses, a cuddle and a purr. I have an alarm clock that's
covered in fur!
Check out pictures of Vino at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album

I love making the nut roast on Christmas morning with Ade, working together
whilst we listen to the carol service on the local radio station. Neither of
us are Christians, but there's something wonderfully nostalgic about singing
along to those old songs.

Jeanette

I grew up in a family in which Christmas traditions were very important,
but not very expensive. As children, we would each get one gift from our
parents, and although it would be something a bit big and special, we
would never get anything really faddy or outrageously expensive. And
although we got and gave a lot of gifts overall, each individual one was
usually small. So I never had a very commericalized view of Christmas,
although I did have a lot of 'must do' things that I thought were
essential parts of the holidays. When I left home, I radically changed my
Christmasses so as to eliminate the 'must do' activities I found so
stressful. I could essentially do what I wanted, because my family is very
scattered geographically, and the grandparents who were in the same
province, and whom I spent Christmas Day with after my own parents moved
away, died. So: I still keep up the tradition of buying small gifts for
immediate family and a few extremely close friends. Since none of my
family live in the same town, I try to get all the family stuff in the
mail by, well, about now. I usually try to have the friends' gifts and two
family birthday gifts (for January) decided on and/or bought around now.
Then I stay away from the stores, particularly the ones in the malls.
There is nothing that puts me in an un-holiday mood faster than a trip to
an overcrowded mall. Next, I do nothing until the week before Christmas. I
avoid almost all office partys and such. I may or may not decorate much at
Christmas; I leave it until very close to the day, and then decide what I
want to do. I go to church, of course, and I go a lot more often than most
because I'm in a couple choirs, and Christmas is a busy time. And on the
day itself, I usually go to Christmas dinner with friends, although one
year I also helped out with a free dinner offered at my church - I may not
this year, it didn't look like I could fit it in. I phone my mother and
my sisters and brother. They phone me. We do the same at New Year's. I
keep my decorations (if I put them up) up for the full 12 days, and
finish off the season with a church service and one Christmas party I
don't miss, a potluck for one of the choirs I am in, which is always held
after Christmas and New Years. In recent years, the religious aspect has
regained its importance for me - I notice that just outlining my
celebrations, that comes up.

What I have done over the years is simply take away all the bits of
Christmas that aren't essential and that I find too stressful. There are
so many places to go, parties to attend, things to buy, it's very easy to
get overwhelmed and to spend more than you can afford. I'm lucky in that I
was not raised to expect to get or give really expensive gifts. And my
present workplace is fairly low-key as well. Even so, I could, if I
wanted, go to quite a series of breakfasts, lunches, and parties
ranging from those for my immediate workgroup to those for the entire
institution. But I don't, I only go to ones involving people I work
with directly. One place I worked, we voted to donate a fixed sum each
($5-10, I think) to a local children's charity instead of doing a gift
exchange or secret santa. I much prefer that because it saves on the
hassle of extra shopping, and it gives to people who really need it, not
people who are employed and really don't need  whatever little doodad you
can buy for the price limit that was agreed to.

I enjoy Christmas a lot more since I stopped trying to create the
"perfect" one, with "perfect" defined by some fantasy informed by ads,
decorations and music starting in November!

My family's yules are pretty quiet affairs, now that all the kids are
pretty grown-up (my youngest niece is 15, my other niece 22 and nephew
21). On the Eve, we gather at my sister's for a big meal, everyone
bringing their own contributions. I've always given books for presents
(maybe that makes me the boring auntie...), not very expensive, but I
usually give them a lot of thought and try to really find something that
the presentee will like. We're not Christians, so we don't go in for any
of the church stuff, but since it's time off from work, we take the
opportunity to be with the family.

Gad. I don't know what to do and I'm already in a state of controlled panic,
just like every year. I'm really sick of that and it's got to stop. I enjoy
getting the decorations out and the tree.But the shopping, forget it. It's
already a nightmare out there, and I get the feeling sometimes it doesn't mean
anything--we're just all puppets on the ends of the consumer marketing industry
strings. We're constantly bombarded from every direction.
It's time for me to quit worrying about my kids being disappoint if I don't
find the *exact right gift*. For God's sakes, they are 22 and 27.
Part of it is that since I quit working I have turned into practically a
recluse and I am starting to get almost phobic about crowds. The other part is
we absolutely do not have the extra cash this year.
But I digress... to answer your question, I've always found the really little
things I enjoy at Christmas. Even in this little town, there is a holiday
school band concert, the elementary school does a children's play/chorale. The
local piano teacher holds a Christmas recital for her students. I like to drive
around and look at lights. Our little country church does a Christmas music
service. And the cards! I am already getting *beautiful* cards from rpca and
that's going to be one of my favorite Christmas things, too.
Sherry

I try to avoid all the extreme commercial "buy! buy! buy!" as much as
possible normally, and with tight funds, it isn't hard - heh.

As Pagans/Wiccans, we celebrate Yule, so we actually are done with our
celebration a few days before Xmas, which is rather nice.  We get to
relax, and maybe go visit the family for their Xmas celebration, but
we're already done, all gifts wrapped, cookies baked, etc.

Last year, for one of my dearest friends, I hand-embroidered a little
framed piece with kitties on it that said "Friends are Fur-ever".  I
think it's nice to to handmade gifts when you have time and energy.
One of the best gifts we ever got was from my MIL -- one of those
small towel rice pack thingys that you can heat in the microwave and
put on aching muscles for relief.

I'm more traditional on Thanksgiving, and like to do the big feast :-)

Ginger-lyn
tired today and babbling

All I have to say is my other nephew is getting a set of drums this
year! He's 3. Last year his parents laughed so hard at my other brother
and his wife when I gave their son, who was 3 last year, a drum set.
This year it's their turn. And of course since I don't have kids I can
walk away from it all. <big evil grin>

 Bob

I can't say I do anything to lessen the commercialism of the season.  I kind
of revel in it actually :)
Christmas Eve is my most cherished tradition.
Since I was 3 and we moved to Connecticut, we've traveled to New Jersey for
a family celebration on Christmas Day.  It started with packing up three
kids (ages 3,4 & 5) and gifts for a horde of nieces, nephews, siblings and
parents; driving 1.5 - 2 hrs; a late breakfast at one Aunt's house with
opening presents; dinner at another's and then the drive home.
In order for my mother to retain some semblance of sanity through all this,
the Christmas Eve tradition was born.  Because we had to travel so far early
the next day, Santa came to our house *first* !  That way we could open our
presents on Christmas Eve and Mom had more time to wrestle us into the car
in the morning :)

It has morphed into a simple buffet dinner of salad, meat pie & vegan meat
pie substitute [mom has created a mushroom based pie that, while it will
never be the "real thing" is quite good in it's own right, besides Teri
probably doesn't remember what the real meat pie actually tastes like...]
and mulled cider, followed by homemade cookies and eggnog (real and vegan
substitute).  For several years (before the grandchild) before, during and
after we ate, we would build a 3D jigsaw puzzle together.  Now we play with
Alexander who is an endless source of amusement at nearly 3 years old :)
Eventually we each grab our stocking (and the stockings for the furkids, mom
is a good grandma) and take seats in the living room to open gifts.  It's a
warm, fuzzy kind of evening and allows us to all be together no matter which
family's "turn" it is for Christmas dinner (the married folk alternate years
with the in-laws - this year it's Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas
with the in-laws).

hmmm, done babbling now :)

snip

For me, the rpca card exchange is a huge boost to my holiday.  In addition,
I feel especially drawn to working with socializing the kitties at the
humane society during this time.
Christine

At my parents' house we no longer do the "gifts for everyone" thing, it
got too expensive. We now do a gift exchange, so that each adult only
has to get one present for another adult, instead of 12-15... However,
the kids still all get presents, but this year one of the kids should be
graduating to the adult roster. He is in college now! :)