gifting

[pinkpolarity]

Had a bit of a heated discussion with a friend tonight about my #1 reason for disliking the holiday season: gifting culture clashes. I'd be tempted to make my main question here "are my experiences honestly THAT atypical?" if I hadn't just come across this on the Miss Manners feed: Miss Manners says "time to squelch company Secret Santa programs.

Comments

[christmasjedi]

My family has always sat around and opened gifts one at a time youngest to oldest, but we never had more than a dozen people and they were all close family. Occasionally a boyfriend or girlfriend would come, and the family would be kind enough to get them a token gift or two, and the kids always got more than the adults, but it always seemed to work out pretty well. (Although I will admit that there was much griping done the year we all got hats or travel mugs from my aunt's trucking business as gifts. But she was only around occasionally, and well known for that sort of thing

[justdbear]

Gift exchanges at the workplace is not a good idea

[terrylj]

We used to go way crazy with Christmas, but over the years, due to different issues (family who apparently don't want any contact with us at all except for Christmas Eve; rising expenses such as tuition for two kids; cutbacks in salary; etc.) we've cut WAY back

[theczech]

In my family, we do the open one gift at a time on Christmas thing too. I actually like it. We aren't that big a group. It's close family, and nobody is going to get bent out of shape about anything. It's fun family time, so this is fine

Giving Gifts

[nighthawkal]

I hope I answered everything and I didn't go on too long about anything