I really dont want to buy presents for people, or receive them...its just such an objectified, commercialized, judged gesture, and its really hard for me to enjoy it. When people give idiot gifts that the other would have never wanted, showing they know nothing about the person even though they're married, and faking happiness and ruining kid's lives when they figure out their parents have been lying to them the whole time and being forced to be with people you cant stand and gah its so horrid. I'd rather just spend time with the person i love and squeeze what fundamental joys of being alive and together and loved out of this mundane existance this holiday season. and maybe build a gingerbread house and watch a christmas story for 3 days solid. So how do i explain to them that I wont be getting them a present, and i dont expect any, without sounding like a complete jackass?
Well after having read your other post (about getting something for you father), it seems that you did at one time want to buy something for your parents. I personally just ask people exactly what they want for Christmas (do you not exchange wishlists?), and if they can't give me an answer then I just give them some cash. A popular gift exchange between myself and my brothers is for each of us to pass around a $50, making sure each person gives it to each brother, with it returning safely back into the owner's wallet. This certainly helps with figuring out what to give eachother (we all want money, but none of us are too attached to the commercial monopoly that Christmas is, so we tend to not bother with presents between eachother). If you say you don't expect any presents, is this because you don't think they're getting you any, or is it because you don't want any? I'd at least make sure they know your feelings about the commercialization of Christmas before deciding not to get them anything. Either way I wouldn't trouble myself with worrying so much about it, and wait for someone else to post here that actually can think of a good way to tell your parents about not getting them any gifts instead of beating around the bush as I have. Good luck.
I'm buying everyone weapons. At least it's a gift they can use to reduce the population and prevent ecocide.
Well, I hate to say it, but that sounds pretty damned selfish, Allisone! Did you mean it to sound that selfish?? Baron Max
I was merely acting in my own self-intrest. The universal code. Really, name something that isnt. And i really dont want any presents. im trying to clarify my life, not add material clutter to it.
I like the secular take over of Jesus' birthday. The tree is nice, the lights, the pagan revelry and symbolism, the love of the material and real. The commercial nature of it is stupid and exploitive, but you don't have to buy stuff to enjoy the materialism. Most products are not materialistic, but the reduction of honest material into cheap crap that gets thrown away as soon as possible. We call America materialistic, but it's anything but.
Oh, I agree with you ....but few people would actually say it, ya' know? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! So ...just tell everyone, make it perfectly known to all how you feel and let the chips fall where they will. My family has done similar things in the past and it's worked out quite well ...some would "sneak" gifts to the kids or something, but all-in-all, it worked out fine. People just enjoy buying and giving gifts to people ...it's ingrained in them, so...? Just tell them, Allisone, they'll make a fuss, but stand your ground and they'll probably respect it. Baron Max
Sorry, my mind must not have been working very well when I posted that Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! (Ifu will be gone soon enough so this confusion will end).
allisone i believe that you just do not know what to get anybody or that the gift you do give them won't be appropriate. therefore you have decided to just not participate. i too feel the same and like you i am not getting anybody anything.
Tell them you are now celebrating Festivus!! Frank Costanza: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way. Cosmo Kramer: What happened to the doll? Frank Costanza: It was destroyed. But out of that a new holiday was born . . . a Festivus for the rest of us! Cosmo Kramer: That must've been some kind of doll. Frank Costanza: She was.
This Christmas I do not want objects as gifts. I want abstractions of value, in large amounts. Paper credit. You know…..money, and lots of it.
