Consumer Reports has a good article on what *actually* happens to those Christmas gifts you give that the recipient doesn't care for.....
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| Thanks to Consumer Reports website |
So - what do you do?
Personally, I think that Christmas is so overdone, so commercialized.......why can't we go back to just homemade gifts.....or just - doing the simple things? Such as.....telling each person what we wish for them or how we appreciate them in a poem? Or doing a good deed? Or paying it forward to a stranger?
The thought of even considering that a gift is "lousy" is repulsive to me.
I swear, I didn't have much as a child, yet I was just as happy with what little I had. We were lucky to get one gift.
We didn't have the fancy electronics or the latest fad gifts. My dad was too busy trying to put food on the table....gifts weren't a priority. I don't think I ever got a doll as a gift - not one that had a full set of limbs anyway!
Things were so much simpler. It was a magical time.....hiking around in the snowdrifts....tobogganing with friends and family......hot chocolate fireside by the frozen lake after skating.....the snow floating down softly from the black sky....so quiet your ears hurt.........hauling home the Christmas tree from the next valley over.......
It didn't matter that there weren't stacks and stacks of gifts under the tree......
I truly believe the satisfaction level and happiness was at a far greater level than what is experienced today.
The Spirit of Christmas has somehow been lost in the last few decades.
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And in light of the current subject, here is something for you to watch:
3 comments:
True. My grandmother tells me stories about how awesome they thought it was when they would get oranges and a candy cane in their stocking. I precepted a nursing student recently who said she told her young kids, "Jesus only got three presents, so if I get you any more than that, you're really lucky." Totally stealing that approach if I ever have kids.
A batch of chocolate crinkle cookies made by my sister, even sent across the country, is a great Christmas gift.
Hooodnurse: My mom used to tell us how they got potatoes and apples in their stockings to fill them up. Sure enough, the next few years...that's what we got too! :) Definitely we got Japanese oranges! That was a real treat!Rationed carefully! Plus various Christmas nuts and a couple of candies. That was usually it. I like that - "Jesus only got three gifts"...good one!
NP: OOOOH that sounds like a very nice gift! :) Anything edible!
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