If I succumb to the subliminal messages sent out over the airwaves, I will wind up charging thousands of dollars on merchandise that my friends and relatives won't want, don't need, that won't actually bring us any closer together, or prove once and for-all that I am all grown up now and have loads of money at my disposal!
The only bit of Christmas-fueled shopping pressure I have caved in to has to do with work. The eight nurses who work at my agency, myself included, get together for a holiday dinner and exchange a grab bag. It doesn't stop there though. I found out last year that they also break their own rule by giving everyone a little token gift, something small.
But small x 7 = not exactly cheap.
So, to avoid feeling like a jerk tomorrow night at dinner, I got everyone a coffee mug with 2 packets of gourmet hot chocolate that I'll put together with some red or green cellophane and put a little bow around it and shush it out a little bit and voila! Jerk feeling avoided. Then I'll come home and worry that maybe it was a little too much and think about that a hundred times over and over before falling asleep. (Mental note to self-do not drink coffee with dessert tomorrow.)
All in all, it'll come to about $45 with the wrapping stuff. Not too bad I guess, but there are other corners of my life where I could spend $30 here and $40 there. Singularly, it's not a fortune. "Don't be a scrooge, I tell myself." But add it all up and it's some serious coin.
*****
Q: What would be one of the greatest things we could do with Christmas to just improve it beyond our wildest dreams?
A: Rather than buy gifts for others, we could buy gifts for ourselves!
This is a genius idea on so many levels. Just picture it-gathering together with your family and friends, showing off all of the wonderful things that you've purchased, sort of like show-and-tell. You could discuss the price openly, candidly. Hell you could actually brag about just how cheap the stuff you bought was. This is a big no-no in our current Christmas tradition. By God, you could leave the tags ON!
I love the idea of oohing and aaaahing with my family over the wonderful things we've given ourselves. I could give Sadie a chunk of money and let her go to town. The only exception would be the baby, the little ones who can't really buy themselves gifts. We could make exceptions for the very young, the very old, and those who are disabled (provided they have a note from their doctor :-P ).
Some of your family members would spend outrageous amounts of money on themselves and you could just smile to yourself, shake your head, and say "Crazy Aunt Peggy, she doesn't know when to quit!" You wouldn't feel like your gift to her is completely out of proportion to her gift to you. There would be no keeping-up-with the-Aunt-Peggies to drive you crazy and/or into bankruptcy.
Other members of your family who are notoriously chintzy would just suffer with their own lame gifts to themselves. No hard feelings there!
Think of all the wrapping paper (aka TREES) we would spare if we were just giving gifts to ourselves!
*****
My Christmas Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity to not spend too much money on presents
Courage to actually get to the mall before Christmas Eve
And the wisdom to never
buy an $80 prime rib roast ever again
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