It is exactly a month until Christmas.
I cannot believe how quickly this has come back around. Every year I am on planet Earth it seems to get quicker and quicker and quicker. To the point that I’ve got chocolate still left over from last Christmas that I haven’t got around to eating yet!
Every year I have the same issues: What to buy people as Christmas presents?
Now my family isn’t huge. I have a son, a partner, her son (to all intents and purposes a step-son), a mother, a brother and a sister. My brother and sister both have kids and years ago they accounted for the bulk of the Christmas expenditure (after my own immediate kin), but having grown up and flown they no longer need the annual gift of monetary joy from Uncle Ian.
My own son is 17. When he was younger it was all about the number of gifts – quantity, not quality and he unwrapped all the things that Santa had left for him in a humungous stocking at the foot of his bed. He delighted in all the surprise gifts that he got that were not on the Christmas List that he diligently sent to the Elves every November 30th when they came to drop off his advent calendar full of sweets, as well as being overjoyed at receiving those that were – thus certifying his status as a “good boy” this year!
At 17 the quantity and quality have been replaced by cost. Now the question of ‘how much’ is more about the cost in monetary terms than how much in physical terms is received.
My partner’s son is only slightly younger (about 6 months) so Christmas for her is the same.
And it’s not just that the gifts for the kids carry a bigger price tag. So too do the other gifts for the rest of my family. Not because they are focussed on cost, but simply because once you get to a certain stage in life it’s almost impossible to find a modest gift that is something they want but haven’t yet got around to buying themselves.
My mother has everything she can ever need and more. Last year I gave her 12 envelopes, one to be opened on the first day of each month. I’ve already written about those here. I could do the same this year, but if you work out the expense of the 12 surprises this year you are talking about the price of a good quality cruise! It’s been like the 12 MONTHS of Christmas, rather than the 12 days, and has probably cost almost as much as 12 pipers piping!
This year my brother is getting a Solo Stove firepit for his back garden. When I visited his house a month ago he proudly showed me his new patio, adorned with his old faithful chimenea that had rotted almost completely to nothing. So he’ll love his gift, and he’ll use it for years. It’s a great gift and a result in the sense that he wouldn’t buy it himself. But it set me back almost £250. Normally I don’t spend that much on him, and he never spends that much on me!
But this is the thing: As long as you aren’t borrowing to fund buying things, and as long as you can afford it, it’s far better to give gifts that people will love, enjoy and appreciate than to worry about some arbitrary price point and then just buy something shite.
If we buy fewer but better. If we focus on quality over quantity. If we ignore cost (as far as we are able to) and concentrate on joy then whatever we spend on our loved ones over Christmas isn’t wasted.
At the end of the day it’s the season of goodwill, and I’d rather see the pleasure on the face of those I love than leave a slightly better will to the same people when I’m dead.
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