Can We Talk 2

Christmas Giving

I keep debating whether it's really a good thing to lavish gifts on kids or not. For instance, when I was a kid, presents came from my parents or Santa or the Easter Bunny only. When I was a teenager, my mother's mother starting buying me an orchid to wear to church, but would give my younger brothers a candy egg. We never received presents from grandparents or aunts and uncles for any occasion. We survived quite nicely. When my dad's mother felt like giving us something, she did, no rhyme or reason.

However, we learned to give gifts. We always gave gifts to our grandparents and anyone who came to our house on Christmas Day. We used to have extra guests all the time. We got each other gifts. When we added another generation to the family, every adult bought presents for each one. So the single adults paid through the nose for all the many family members and guests. The married adults only gave one gift from the entire family, so you couldn't say we "exchanged" gifts.

I've heard many people in their 20's and 30's say this. They get one gift from a sibling's family, but he or she gives that family 5 or 6 gifts. They have mixed feelings about it. They want to be generous to the people they love, but somehow it feels really unbalanced. They don't make a lot of money and don't have extra to dole out. They can't quite figure out how to handle it in a way that makes everyone happy. Not feeling mercenary is one of the requirements.

Someone I know isn't buying gifts for anyone over 16. They have children or grandchildren all under that age. So would that mean that people (in that extended family) without young children or grandchildren don't have to buy any gifts for other people's children? Or they DO have to buy gifts, but just won't get any? Maybe they should add, no gifts for nieces or nephews or their children.

That does tie in with my original thought. Do we really need all that stuff? Do the kids benefit from a lot of things? If a parent is running around, going crazy in public, and almost crying because the store is so busy that no one can help her shop in a self-service store (I witnessed this yesterday), is that a sign of a parent's whose values are askew? Where is the Christmas spirit in that behavior? In another store, I witnessed a lady in a wheelchair break bad, trying to coerce the store managers into a better price--the second bad wheelchair shopper I've seen this season. (Handicapped people aren't any more virtuous than the rest of us.)

I tried making things for presents a few years. I crocheted full size afghans. They took months to do each one, and the yarn and pattern would run up to $40. I'm not sure they were appreciated or well kept. It hurts to think that all the hours I spent working on them, tending carefully to each stitch, was wasted. My late brother kept good care of his. I got it back after his death, and it is well-made if I say so myself, and very warm. They may think that because it was homemade that they weren't worth much.

I am drifting towards a no gift policy for anyone outside your immediate family, I think. Your own spouse, parent, child, grandchild, that's it. Grown siblings, not. Nieces, nephews, not. Charity, of course.I think I'm feeling more spirit giving a small gift to the pianist at church than my own family.I'm leaning towards activity together, the rules include no using the computer or texting while we're having family time. Whether we go to a holiday concert, or take a short vacation together or go bowling on Christmas Day, it's the time we focus on each other, not unwrapping a gift we don't need.