The Politics of Christmas

I really love Christmas.  I always have a great time; I get awesome gifts, and go to a lot of trouble to give awesome gifts.  This was true even when I was a wee lassie, incubating in Frugalness. When I was seven years old I spent $4.99 of my hard-earned birthday money to buy my dad a paperback called “How to Survive The Coming Bad Times”.  See?  Awesome!

But I know that plenty of people don’t feel that way.  To them, the Christmas Spirit is demonic.  And I think I know why - it has to do with Politics and Expectations.

Christmas is one of those occasions when we are sometimes forced to give gifts for political reasons rather than because we sincerely want to.  But even so, this can be fun, especially when you feel the warm glow of appreciation for your efforts.

Oh? What’s that you say?  You mean there have been times when you have felt, er, the ABSENCE of appreciation, or dare I say, CONTEMPT, for your efforts?

Yes, I know.  Believe it or not, this can (and reportedly, has) happened.  The evidence of how a gift-giver truly feels about you is pretty easy to spot.  It’s right there in what they give you in return.  There are Christmases when you may be ready to build up a good head of This-Is-An-Incredibly-Crappy-Christmas-Present-And-I-Am-Royally-Offended steam.  But hold on - wait a minute.  If you find yourself in this situation, calm down - this is actually a Golden Frugal Opportunity.  And how often do those come along?

Allow me to illustrate.  Not that this sort of thing has ever happened to you, me, or any real-live person, but just SAY that you go to a lot of trouble every year to pick out a thoughtful, rather expensive gift for some people.  But for years and years you get this sort of thing in return : A Pair of Rusty Scissors,   Bath Salt Gift Baskets with the price sticker left on (2.98) (UGGGH!!! This is a Bladder-Infection-Waiting-to-Happen!), flannel shirt with the price sticker left on (2.98), Nothing, Nothing, Crap, More crap, a (tiny) empty box wrapped up with a (crap) poem on top proclaiming “This is a Box of LOVE!”. (I’m not a big poetry fan, but I can easily identify Crap Poetry.  As every English Major knows (unless in the hands of true professionals) the more it rhymes, the crappier it is.  This specimen rhymed a lot. I mean, if it actually happened.  Which of course it didn’t).  Hee hee - it really is The Thought That Counts.

OK.  Now, not that this sort of  unfortunate thing has ever happened to me, you, or any real-live person, but if it HAD, after a few years of  being on the business-end of this type of egregious gift-giving behavior  it could (rightly) be regarded as a PATTERN.  So if that’s the case, then you can feel pretty comfortable on cutting down the ol’ gift list.  This will save you a lot of money!  Yay!  That’s frugal.  Plus your Christmas-Joy-O-Meter will instantly shoot up into Happy Happy territory.

Surprisingly, this is sort of hard to do.  In fact it may be best to ease into it and work up to going cold-turkey only after a few years of being the giver of progressively more crappy gifts yourself.  But once you get to the point where you can cut the dead-weight out of your Christmas list with nary a twinge from your conscience, you will feel great.  And if you do feel that twinge, which you probably will because YOU are nice, and were raised right - just comfort yourself with the thought that THEY most certainly do not (feel a twinge in their conscience, I mean.  Why, you ask?  Probably because they are NOT nice and were NOT raised right.  Which, admittedly, is not really their fault).

Nothing will happen, either.  The earth will still spin, the sun will continue to rise.  The only thing is that you will have a little more money to spend at Christmas-time on the the people you REALLY like.  And who really like you back.

As far as Expectations go - the only thing you can do there is lower them.  Then you will be happy with whatever you get.  Easy!