patrick.net

You know you don't have to give gifts at all. The only people I buy gifts for are my kids.
The wife and I exchange gifts through our kids buying for each other.

I pretty much just buy my kids gifts, and the wife gets something useful like a vacuum or kitchen item.

My wife and I agreed to stop buying gifts for each on Xmas, birthdays and anniversaries. If we're out and about and see something we want or online, we just get it for ourselves within reason. The kids get minimal but decent gifts at Xmas and birthdays from us. If people knew what we made they would think our kids gifts are very frugal.

We prefer to gift ourselves and kids travel experiences. We try for at least 3 one week vacations a year. Those are the memories you keep. Your kid getting a Stars Wars action figure is cool to them in that moment, but 2 years later when other people have bought them all new shit they won't even remember that toy.

I was never very religious, but I never did really understand when/where/why all the gift giving became a thing around Christmas. The vanity of it all is rather staggering considering the religious basis of the holiday.

anonymous says

Most of the time the best gifts are gifts of your time to visit nursing homes, hospitals, etc., an actual letter sent in an envelope, the unexpected phone call to someone who is alone during the season, donations to the local food bank etc. as well as taking a home cooked meal or baked goods to someone that is unable to fend for themselves.

Our local library has an Angel Tree every Christmas and we take at least 5 families. They kind of give us a budget to try and stay under. Of course the wife goes ape shit, which I don't mind. Mind you, these aren't things like toys and electronics that they can ask for. These are families that have trouble with just keeping their kids in decent clothes.

I don't do well with in person suffering (emotional, loneliness or physical suffering) so I tend to donate to causes that would support individuals like that. I know it's kind of a cop out to not do in person stuff, but whatever. I usually stick to hyper local type things I donate to so I can literally check in on it if I wanted, to make sure funds and donations were going to what they said they were.

My family stopped exchanging gifts decades ago. Adults can buy their own crap! Gifts are for kids and pets.

Yea we ask the parents what size the kiddos wear and buy them clothes at goodwill. Then we remind the adults that there will be no reciprocity in adults gifts, and we book a holiday for ourselves instead. The only Christmas gift i care about is that big juicy five figure bonus at work. Any day now

errc says

and buy them clothes at goodwill.

errc says

The only Christmas gift i care about is that big juicy five figure bonus at work.

You could spend some of that 5 figure bonus and not buy the kids used, hand me down, worn, stained clothes.

anon_1d902 says

You could spend some of that 5 figure bonus

It's not 5 figures after taxes.

anon_1d902 says

You could spend some of that 5 figure bonus and not buy the kids used, hand me down, worn, stained clothes.

Some of the clothes and appliance objects at Goodwill are donated brand new by chain stores because they are odd lots or have small defects/ box crushes etc. In Cali, you can buy them tax free, an added bonus. I have seen high end players and audio for pennies on the dollar at their original cost. I bought some amplifiers once for $50, and a few years later after using them for a while sold them on ebay for $500.

anonymous says

3. Every American generates around 80 pounds of clothing waste a year. The average American generates around 80 pounds of textile waste a year, much of which ends up in landfills, decomposing and emitting gases and the chemicals used to produce the garments. It takes decades for these to fully decompose. The $3 trillion fashion industry is the fifth most polluting industry on earth.

This stuff is great as fuel at a trash burning electrical plant.

anonymous says

3. Every American generates around 80 pounds of clothing waste a year. The average American generates around 80 pounds of textile waste a year, much of which ends up in landfills, decomposing and emitting gases and the chemicals used to produce the garments. It takes decades for these to fully decompose. The $3 trillion fashion industry is the fifth most polluting industry on earth.

This has to be 80+% women.

If there is one thing on my list of things I dislike about the holidays it’s the part about adults exchanging wrapped trash among each other that they go to great lengths to obtain.

My family does a white elephant exchange on the years we get together. The only rule we have it buying gifts for our kids and nieces/nephews. My wife and I buy something for each other as well. If it's not our kids, or each other, we never spend more than $20.

My Brother runs a Home for the Wayward Sad Sack. Every year he hosts a Christmas day party and feast at his house.
Every year it gets bigger. It's his friends and family, his wife's friends and family, People from work, and if anyone coming knows anyone spending Christmas alone bring them along. He puts a huge spread, and does Name that tune where he gives away prizes.
Then at the end of the party he does this thing, he spends all year buying up cheap dollar store crap when he can. Just stuff that costs 99 cents. He'll pay as much as $4.99 for a few choice items if it's something he thinks everyone will get a laugh out of.

He wraps each one in a gift wrap, and they place them all in an even pile down the 4 picnic tables with guests on each side.
He then gives every 4th person a set of dice. You roll it, if you don't get nothing, you roll again. If you get doubles you pick a gift and pass the dice on. If you get a pair of sixes you can steal someone else prized gift. Though he can steal it back when he rolls double sixes. Also with a pair of sixes you get to roll again. As soon as you pass the dice, the next dice are always about two people away.
This goes on for about 20 or 30 minutes until the gift pile is gone and everyone has stole at least one gift from a neighbor. Odly everyone gets about the same amount of gifts.

He used to end it there after 20 minutes, but in recent years, he then does about a 10 minute session of dice rolling, if you get a pair of sixes you can swap a neighbor's gift with one of yours, only one dice roll and always pass it on. For the second round.

Then everyone opens their dollar store junk and we all laugh. Some people are delighted with the offerings, some leave them to get re-wrapped and go back into next years gift pile.

RC2006 says

This has to be 80+% women.

I was thinking 90% or more, but so true.

RC2006 says

3. Every American generates around 80 pounds of clothing waste a year.

I wear my jeans until they have holes in them. When they're new I'm respectable, when they're old, I'm cool.