Giving Christmas/holiday gifts: do you?

[malkin]

No rule here, hardly even a general pattern. Sometimes I buy tons of stuff, send it everywhere, sometimes hardly any, sometimes something in between. I have in the past sometimes sent massive amounts of cards and other times not. Sometimes it happens early, sometimes late, sometimes Christmas Eve and sometimes Christmas morning.

This attitude was really useful when I was sharing the kid with my ex- who always had expectations that he could/would not express in any simple or comprehensible form.

My general philosophy is 'Do what you like during the holidays.'

[PamNY]

My general philosophy is 'Do what you like during the holidays.'

+1 on the above!

My parents were good at Christmas. Plenty of gifts, but nothing really excessive. I never believed Santa was real -- they told me the Santa story was something we pretend for fun. I adored getting or making gifts for them and my grandmother; Christmas was as much about giving as receiving for me, and I'm grateful for parents who made that possible (and joyful).

When we lived near the Smoky Mountains and learned there was fresh, beautiful snow in the mountains on Christmas day, we all put on boots and headed for Mt. LeConte. I don't remember the details -- I'm sure we had Christmas dinner as usual, but the schedule was certainly altered and we all had a lovely day.

Now that I'm not involved with family, I don't do much for Christmas. In years past, I made a tradition of the nontraditional, usually enjoying yummy foods in neighborhoods where nothing closes for Christmas. Sadly, my like-minded friends have either died or moved away, but I have great memories of yuletide dim sum.