I just figured that people had started celebrating two holidays - the Christmas where we're all nice and go to church and mouth the words about charity and peace and good will (how about volunteering at your local homeless centre any of the other 364 days of the year then?); and at the same time we seem also celebrated ancient rite of Saturnalia - the end of winter festival where we all drink ourselves into oblivion, exchange gifts, eat until we're ill and (if we're lucky) have sex with inappropriate partners. I don't see that the two are incompatible, but I do think we should stop confusing one with the other.

(I also can't stand the commercialisation process about the whole thing - presents are good, presents are fine, but a voucher? If you can't put more than two minutes thought into buying something for someone, if you can't come up with an idea that just maybe might mean something to the person you're gifting to ... really, why are you buying them something?) (My Paterfamilias I can understand - he's only really met my husband creature about five times total, and they're from utterly opposite worlds in culture and upbringing, so a voucher for the local DVD/media store is fine, at least it *will* get something he wants.) (Also, I feel really shitty because I'm on such a limited budget, so I'll go out of my way to find little things which aren't expensive, but which I at least think are personal gifts, not an expression of how much I can afford to spend on people, and they're mostly ignored in favour of the big flashy shiny gifts. I don't know why I bother some years.)