Christmas and Gift buying ?

Question

It amazes me how people will go into debt buying gifts. What's the purpose ? Your credit gets ruined if you fail to pay on time or end up getting laid off or whatever. The day after christmas everthing you spent boo koo bucks on just went 50% to 80% offf ! I find all this gift buying for the retailer not the consumer. Its obsurd. The best gifts of all are the ones from the heart. Look at what it has done all over the world...the children that feel left out because they dont have a gift under a tree if they have a tree at all on christmas morning. This Holiday as we created it in tradition has created heavy hearts. Is that what Christmas is supposed to be ???????

Answer 1

I am on a pension, I cannot afford to buy much and I have a really large family. Throughout the year, I buy small gifts when they are on special, Also I make items of all different shapes and sizes using my sewing machine and crafts. Each fortnight out of my pension cheque, I put $10 into my Christmas Bonus Club Account, which gives me $260 just before Christmas as well.
I also bake heavily in the week prior, and make up celophane bags of home made sweets, and biscuits.
A neighbour who has little, I give a small hamper each year as well. Every cheque, I buy an item to put in it.
I also put a nice purchased gift for a needy child under the tree at my church.
Every person gets a gift, and it is given with love. I might add, I do not go without, and I do not owe any money to anyone.
It isn't necessary to drown in debt every year like so many do. Commercialism, greed and 'keeping up with the Jones', spoil what should be a wonderful celebration about the birth of baby Jesus.
It is getting harder to bring our children up to have decent values while this goes on around them.
I agree with you, and I hope you have a very merry Christmas.

Answer 2

Excellent points. I believe in gift-giving at Christmas, but our commercializaton of it has driven it way out of porportion.

I think you'll love this book:

Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into the Season
by Jo Robinson and Jean C. Staeheli
http://www.amazon.com/Unplug-Christmas-Machine-Complete-Putting/dp/0688109616/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195871893&sr=8-1

I think a person can express his/her love through creative, inexpensive, thoughtful gifts that don't break the budget. Those who can afford to, however, might give their relatives and friends things they otherwise could not afford. But I certainly don't believe in spending lots of money on meaningless gifts trying to impress people that you really don't like! Better to spend that money on a charity drive, where it's needed.

Remember that even the Baby Jesus got Christmas gifts--gold, frankincense, and myrrh.