I wonder when it happened....
I wonder when I stopped getting excited about Christmas and instead started feeling a sense of dread and drudgery about the whole season.
Don't get me wrong, I love the whole food aspect of the holiday season,(Just take one look at my ass and you can TELL that.), but what I despise is the whole sense of consumerism in it. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, whatever you call it....people trampling each other for cheap plastic crap from china...I just don't get it!
You know when I do my Chritsmas Shopping? Generally between December 18th and Christmas Day. Payday is the 1st and the 20th for me so that's when I have money.
I always tell myself every year, "I'm going to get it all done before Thanksgiving.." and it never happens that way..EVER.
I don't use credit cards, I hate them, I think they are evil and get you into trouble. We're pretty much a cash only family, if you can't pay cash for it then you don't need it. The exception to the rule on this is cars and really big items like our house.
I know some people who spend literally THOUSANDS of dollars on Christmas on credit cards, and struggle all year to pay it back. Sorry but that kind of takes all the joy out of it. We buy what we can afford to buy and move on. It's Christmas, it's not worth going into debt or going hungry for.
I love giving gifts, but hate feeling like I didn't spend quite enough on people, and maybe they didn't like what I got them. It's almost as if some people feel like the dollar amount you spent is equal to how much you care about them.
I generally make up HUGE batches of homemade fudge and other treats and package them up for gift giving. I'll give those to friends and family either alone as a gift or with something else as an add-on gift.
Getting gifts is great, but still makes me feel a little uncomfortable, especially if what I get from someone obviously cost more than what I spent on them. It's a vicious cycle.
A couple of years ago I said to hell with it all and just started buying Master Card Gift Cards from my bank for all of the people on my list 12 and over. It took a lot of stress out of my holiday shopping and I felt it was a great gift because then the recipient could go and pick out whatever they needed or wanted. (Our local bank offers Master Card Gift Cards with no hidden fees and no expiration dates. They make great gifts and you get them directly from the teller and they take the money directly out of your bank account when you purchase them. I think they make GREAT gifts, and it's a really great service.)
If you needed a tank of gas, or a haircut, or a lunch out, or a new sweater you could make the choice yourself what to spend the money on. I personally LOVE gift cards for anything.
As a matter of fact I have let it be known to all that might be shopping for me this year that I want gift cards for Lowes for Christmas. Why? Because for the past year I have been without a working dishwasher, and it would thrill my heart to no end to be able to put all of my Christmas Gift Cards together and purchase one.
Hand washing dishes for 5 people has become a nightmare chore for me, and my hands, and my nails. I can't even imagine how joyful it would be to be able to just load all the dirty dishes into a machine and close the door and walk away. I think it would be downright heavenly.
Of course if I don't wind up getting a dishwasher for Christmas it won't be the end of the world. We'll just save our pennies and other change for awhile and get one ourselves.
And on that note I'm going to hit publish on this post and go and try to find something productive to do....there's plenty of dishes in the sink that need washin'!
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