This year my husband and I talked about Christmas before-hand and decided not to exchange gifts. We were both fine with the results. Last year we didn’t communicate as well and I had hurt feelings. What a difference a year makes.
We kept our gifts to each kid between $100 and $150. As they are older and prefer clothes or electronics, the pile of gifts was rather small, but they liked everything they got. What I eliminated was really all of those ‘filler’ gifts that I was impulsively purchasing in years past. You know what I mean; those extra little things that may be fun to open but ultimately aren’t used. A lot of stocking stuffers fall under this category.
For his family, instead of getting our nephews video games the way we usually do, each one got $25. I just couldn’t see how we would pay $60 each for those games this year, with my husband laid off and all. We did participate in one of the family exchanges, but not all of them. (They played games and for each one you put in a $10 gift if you wanted to join in.) His family is great about that stuff… no one made any comments or questioned our decision.
For my family, mom and dad each got a couple of small things they liked. My sister got a few things that I’ve bought throughout the year - we hang out together and if she saw something at a craft show or store she liked, I bought it at the time. Those things were not only just what she wanted, but brought back memories of a fun day together.
I have a niece with two kids, but they get so much stuff that it’s crazy. This year I didn’t buy the kids anything, but bought something for my niece instead. I think I’ll do the same thing next year. I love those kids, but why add to their giant stack of gifts? It feels so strange to not buy for them; you know the whole ‘Christmas is for children’ mantra, but spending the money on my niece instead just felt like the right thing to do.
I’m now much more relaxed and happy then in years past. No additional credit card debt because of Christmas - we paid cash for everything. If we didn’t have it, we didn’t spend it. What a concept!
Hopefully my husband will go back to work after January 5th as promised. With the auto industry issues, who knows? Poeple who don’t live in Michigan don’t understand the domino effect of this stuff. My husband doesn’t work for the big three, but if they go down they will take huge number of subsidiary businesses with them. If that happens, my husband, two of my brothers and my sister will all lose their jobs, not to mention just about everybody we know. There are already so many people on unemployment right now that the system is seriously strained. My husband called on his scheduled day but couldn’t even get through. Maybe they will go belly-up too.:eek:
I went off on a tangent there. I hope all of you had a merry Christmas, whether you could afford diamonds and a new car, or beans and rice.
