It’s five weeks to Christmas, or 36 more sleeps, as Meg at Dipping into the Blogpond puts it.
Like Meg it’s the present-giving that I find most stressful. Every year I find that I dislike the whole present-giving rigmarole more and more. Between my two families there are some 40 - 50 presents to be given (more or less depending on whether we buy gifts for ‘couples’ or individuals), and it just degenerates every year into an exercise in comparative list-making (comparative in the sense that I keep a tally of what I gave people in 2005 or 2006 so that I don’t give them the same thing. It’s so meaningful!).
Some might argue that I should just plan my Christmas shopping better, start earlier, even. My riposte to that is that I work fulltime, and 40 - 50 presents is a lot of shopping. If I was to plan it well in advance, it would mean that I would be spending quite a lot of my year shopping for these gifts, and making sure people are crossed off that infernal list. I dunno, the whole exercise utterly takes the joy out of giving for me.
I don’t know what the solution is, really. Last year we made gingerbread and cookies instead of giving people things, which was a nice idea, but at that time of year there’s just so much food around I don’t know if edible gifts really make much of an impression. Also, some of my family members now have to watch what they eat, so a sugary/ high fat/gluten-laden gift isn’t really the best thing to be giving them.
Let me stress here that I don’t begrudge children (say under the age of 15 or so) their pressies, but for everyone else? Although I do sometimes wonder what sort of message we’re giving children when all it becomes is a gimme gimme gimme session. (And I haven’t even mentioned the cost of all these presents!)
I’d rather just spend Christmas with people, and not worry about the presents. I really enjoy the get-togethers and catching up with people.
Am I just being churlish? What do you do for Christmas? Do you find it as painful as I do?
