Do you guys feel Christmasy? Do you feel happy anticipation as the holidays near?
I am having problems with that……
7 comments
I know what you mean.
The holidays are nearly here, but I still feel like they are a long, long way off.
I think Christmas is going to come and go and I’m not even going to notice until February.
Well…the absence of “Christmas spirit” has become normal, so I don’t really feel that this year is particularly off. Feels pretty normal.
A lot of it has been the decades long pattern of Certain Nameless people who treat Christmas presents as a way to ‘out-cool’ all the other participants. Oh, do I have a gift? Well, OK .. don’t really care to open it .. just want to watch you all open yours .. I’m too cool to be excited about this.
And Christmas morning drags on for 6 hours with all the enthusiasm of reading the day’s stock reports.
Part of that I think is that we’re all adults now, and the giving of gifts has so little meaning when you’re giving things the person could very well just get themselves. And we live so far apart that we don’t have any chance of figuring out what you’d like independently. So .. you give folks a laundry list of items, small things we all know you’d already get for yourself if you really wanted them; large things it’s awkward to even mention … just becomes odd.
So everyone eventually just exchanges cards & gift cards, and you might as well just bring a stack of money to the day, throw it into a big communal pot, and play poker for 3 hours to see who gets the biggest haul.
(hmm… that might be more fun, actually …. everyone brings however much money they’d have spent .. all goes in a big pot, counted and split 6 ways .. each person picks a board game .. 6 finishers in each game get 30-20-20-15-10-5 percent of that 6th .. and then we all go out and buy ourselves presents …)
OK, I’m going to drop that idea.. It’s becomming too much fun in my head, envisioning two days of games and fun and laughing and all that …
So, anyway, barring that, it seems that the festive holiday times are gone, and I missed them for a while, but at this point at least I’m not missing them that much. So I get gift cards for everyone and don’t expect anyone to really be excited about them. So I wrap gift cards in the store gift card wrappers and $300 in gifts could fit in an altoids tin and nothing is wrapped or unwrapped or presented with any cleverness at all.
Well, so. It was fun when it was otherwise, but the fun was in the anticipation, not the day .. and the anticipation was mine, therefore, the fun and joy are mine, too. I guess that’s where I find myself now. Sort of Zen Christmas .. I accept That Which Is, I am pleased by finding things As They Are.
And I’m also looking forward to having Aleah get into this. Because gifts make sense for kids, she might even be enthusiastic about them and want them and bring some energy to the whole thing. I am really looking forward to Christmases with Aleah.
So this may be the last calm Christmas. Actually, last year may have been the last calm Christmas. This may be the transitional Christmas.
Anyway
Ramona, I think the game idea is silly enough that it might be fun… but i am not sure if it would work. I think we might want the presents. 🙂 still, you are right that we need to do something to mix it up somehow.
Maybe just being together this year will do it. Have you told Chris that you think you will be here for Christmas?
I just loaned another 25 on kiva. It made me feel good. I am thinking of adding kiva to my gift list. I am not sure how that would work. If the giver wanted to choose who got it, that would make it more fun to give….. or designated cash would work.
I’ve been thinking about breaking my wishlist into price / usefullness categories.
prices:
the shipping costs more
cheap
not guilt inducing
only one present this year
got money to burn?
won the lotto recently?
usefullness:
amusing but useless
gadget I’ll use once a year
makes life easier
used every day
life changing
I’ve thought about the issue of putting things on the wishlist that are ‘large’ items (for me, qualifying price is $70 and up). Here’s my take:
When we were kids, getting a $30 dollar item was a Big Deal because that was, to us, a large chunk of money. These days that range has moved up.
I have no shame having a ‘camera’ wishlist on Amazon. Yes, nothing on there is cheap. The cheapest item is a filter for, what, $80? The lenses start around 400 – 500… and believe me, those are the ‘consumer’ level lenses. Let’s not get into the external flash units, good tripods, hoods, and… gah. Photography can be an expensive hobby. Sometimes I think I should take up collecting lost bottle caps or something.
Anyway, the point is that for many items that really interest us these days… well, they are expensive. They do cost non-trivial amounts of money.
I’m starting to like the idea of a few simple things coming from whoever and then do a name drawing (like we do for the christmas eve gift) for the single ‘big’ gift. (‘big’ being a relative term) Sure, there would be fewer gifts to go around and all, but I don’t think that matters so much anymore.
Chris, i like the big gift idea… I think… not for this year because some of us are already shopping, but it is definitely something to consider for next year. You are right that most of the things we really want are out of budget except for our spouses. If we got everyone a small gift and one person a large gift it would make it possible to both give and receive something larger, and since we would be drawing names as individuals each “family” will be giving to 2. Now if a couple drew another couple, i suppose a couple to couple gift would be possible. That possibility might even add interest. (Should we tell whose name we draw?)
I would not put Aleah in the drawing. If we had a bunch of “next generation” kids, they could draw names with each other, but with only one, i think we should all be free to give to her. Her gifts to us, once she gets old enough to understand giving gifts for Christmas, need to be small… something she can give. A particularly nice piece of original Aleah art, ready for display, would make me happy.
In most families that I’ve observed, the adults rarely exchange gifts – and I think that’s what we’re moving towards.
As the ready supply of small children grows – children who are asking for toys, which are fun to get and to watch being received – the urge to get some thing for every other person tends to pale. Couple gifts or no gifts, it seems to simply evolve into something.
actually .. thinking ..
and this might be heretical…
Many of the suggestions are openings for discussions on what we might come to a consensus on for next year. Very good to have the discussion and proceed openly into the change.
But .. if I were to make a suggestion for this year ….
…. I’d get rid of the stockings.
The socks are from Santa. I’m thinking you three – Chris, Christina, Aleah – will have Christmas morning somewhere, and then drive into Houston. That way Aleah could have her sock, and then we could all come in for Christmas gifts. Or if you were all here the day of, she could still get her sock. I mean, Santa always knows where you are.
But it is beginning to feel rather silly to be populating the socks for each other (adults).
And so much money gets poured into the little toys (sometimes very, very expensive little toys). I’d personally rather that all went under the tree. I like the fruits and nuts and candy. But can’t we come up with some other way to give each other canned olives?
I know what you mean.
The holidays are nearly here, but I still feel like they are a long, long way off.
I think Christmas is going to come and go and I’m not even going to notice until February.
Well…the absence of “Christmas spirit” has become normal, so I don’t really feel that this year is particularly off. Feels pretty normal.
A lot of it has been the decades long pattern of Certain Nameless people who treat Christmas presents as a way to ‘out-cool’ all the other participants. Oh, do I have a gift? Well, OK .. don’t really care to open it .. just want to watch you all open yours .. I’m too cool to be excited about this.
And Christmas morning drags on for 6 hours with all the enthusiasm of reading the day’s stock reports.
Part of that I think is that we’re all adults now, and the giving of gifts has so little meaning when you’re giving things the person could very well just get themselves. And we live so far apart that we don’t have any chance of figuring out what you’d like independently. So .. you give folks a laundry list of items, small things we all know you’d already get for yourself if you really wanted them; large things it’s awkward to even mention … just becomes odd.
So everyone eventually just exchanges cards & gift cards, and you might as well just bring a stack of money to the day, throw it into a big communal pot, and play poker for 3 hours to see who gets the biggest haul.
(hmm… that might be more fun, actually …. everyone brings however much money they’d have spent .. all goes in a big pot, counted and split 6 ways .. each person picks a board game .. 6 finishers in each game get 30-20-20-15-10-5 percent of that 6th .. and then we all go out and buy ourselves presents …)
OK, I’m going to drop that idea.. It’s becomming too much fun in my head, envisioning two days of games and fun and laughing and all that …
So, anyway, barring that, it seems that the festive holiday times are gone, and I missed them for a while, but at this point at least I’m not missing them that much. So I get gift cards for everyone and don’t expect anyone to really be excited about them. So I wrap gift cards in the store gift card wrappers and $300 in gifts could fit in an altoids tin and nothing is wrapped or unwrapped or presented with any cleverness at all.
Well, so. It was fun when it was otherwise, but the fun was in the anticipation, not the day .. and the anticipation was mine, therefore, the fun and joy are mine, too. I guess that’s where I find myself now. Sort of Zen Christmas .. I accept That Which Is, I am pleased by finding things As They Are.
And I’m also looking forward to having Aleah get into this. Because gifts make sense for kids, she might even be enthusiastic about them and want them and bring some energy to the whole thing. I am really looking forward to Christmases with Aleah.
So this may be the last calm Christmas. Actually, last year may have been the last calm Christmas. This may be the transitional Christmas.
Anyway
Ramona, I think the game idea is silly enough that it might be fun… but i am not sure if it would work. I think we might want the presents. 🙂 still, you are right that we need to do something to mix it up somehow.
Maybe just being together this year will do it. Have you told Chris that you think you will be here for Christmas?
I just loaned another 25 on kiva. It made me feel good. I am thinking of adding kiva to my gift list. I am not sure how that would work. If the giver wanted to choose who got it, that would make it more fun to give….. or designated cash would work.
I’ve been thinking about breaking my wishlist into price / usefullness categories.
prices:
the shipping costs more
cheap
not guilt inducing
only one present this year
got money to burn?
won the lotto recently?
usefullness:
amusing but useless
gadget I’ll use once a year
makes life easier
used every day
life changing
I’ve thought about the issue of putting things on the wishlist that are ‘large’ items (for me, qualifying price is $70 and up). Here’s my take:
When we were kids, getting a $30 dollar item was a Big Deal because that was, to us, a large chunk of money. These days that range has moved up.
I have no shame having a ‘camera’ wishlist on Amazon. Yes, nothing on there is cheap. The cheapest item is a filter for, what, $80? The lenses start around 400 – 500… and believe me, those are the ‘consumer’ level lenses. Let’s not get into the external flash units, good tripods, hoods, and… gah. Photography can be an expensive hobby. Sometimes I think I should take up collecting lost bottle caps or something.
Anyway, the point is that for many items that really interest us these days… well, they are expensive. They do cost non-trivial amounts of money.
I’m starting to like the idea of a few simple things coming from whoever and then do a name drawing (like we do for the christmas eve gift) for the single ‘big’ gift. (‘big’ being a relative term) Sure, there would be fewer gifts to go around and all, but I don’t think that matters so much anymore.
Chris, i like the big gift idea… I think… not for this year because some of us are already shopping, but it is definitely something to consider for next year. You are right that most of the things we really want are out of budget except for our spouses. If we got everyone a small gift and one person a large gift it would make it possible to both give and receive something larger, and since we would be drawing names as individuals each “family” will be giving to 2. Now if a couple drew another couple, i suppose a couple to couple gift would be possible. That possibility might even add interest. (Should we tell whose name we draw?)
I would not put Aleah in the drawing. If we had a bunch of “next generation” kids, they could draw names with each other, but with only one, i think we should all be free to give to her. Her gifts to us, once she gets old enough to understand giving gifts for Christmas, need to be small… something she can give. A particularly nice piece of original Aleah art, ready for display, would make me happy.
In most families that I’ve observed, the adults rarely exchange gifts – and I think that’s what we’re moving towards.
As the ready supply of small children grows – children who are asking for toys, which are fun to get and to watch being received – the urge to get some thing for every other person tends to pale. Couple gifts or no gifts, it seems to simply evolve into something.
actually .. thinking ..
and this might be heretical…
Many of the suggestions are openings for discussions on what we might come to a consensus on for next year. Very good to have the discussion and proceed openly into the change.
But .. if I were to make a suggestion for this year ….
…. I’d get rid of the stockings.
The socks are from Santa. I’m thinking you three – Chris, Christina, Aleah – will have Christmas morning somewhere, and then drive into Houston. That way Aleah could have her sock, and then we could all come in for Christmas gifts. Or if you were all here the day of, she could still get her sock. I mean, Santa always knows where you are.
But it is beginning to feel rather silly to be populating the socks for each other (adults).
And so much money gets poured into the little toys (sometimes very, very expensive little toys). I’d personally rather that all went under the tree. I like the fruits and nuts and candy. But can’t we come up with some other way to give each other canned olives?