I already handed in my Amazon booklist for Christmas but check out ThinkGeek for some pretty unique novelty gifts for those techies in your family! I'm partial to the gadgets section, sort of feels like shopping with "M" from 007 movie fame. Don't we all need a swiss army knife complete with a USB memory card and LED light? My personal favorite is the Swedish Firesteel - a survival tool for starting fires(which I already have from a stocking stuffer present from my Dad a few years ago)! Or how about a glow-in-the-dark flying frizbee disk?
Okay - none of the above are really must have gifts and quite honestly we probably should spend those extra shekels on gifts or food for the less fortunate. In fact, if I wasn't a father of two girls we probably wouldn't be into the gift thing much at all. I sometimes wonder if we are so caught up in consumerism that we really take advantage of the holiday week and just spend time with family!
5 comments:
My favourite has to be the iGuy here
That thing is so cool.
My whole family this year has decided to not go with X-Mas presents. The only people who are getting any presents are the kids, and we're going to skimp on them, too. Seeing as we're not really religious, we thought we'd stress the importance of just being together as a family, all 12 of us. It's going to be fun!
A few years back we did the same thing and pooled our money together to buy a turkey dinner and presents for a low income family in our area. Last year we did the same with a few "couple" friends of ours that we meet with regularly. So yeah - i think your ideas are great - love to hear how it all goes! My parents actually are off to Ethiopia this next week but will arrive back just in time for our family get together. I have a sister & bro-in-law down there working with Sudanese refugees.
Wow! Ethiopia! Man that's a long ways away. Commendable on their part, though. I'd be scared to fly off to another country to try to help out. You just never know what you're going to run into. Actually, to be honest, I'd be more scared of what I might see than anything else. The heartbreak and devastation would probably be too much to bear. My boss actually took a trip to a small town in South Africa this summer to build a community centre (why they needed it for a town of 1000, I don't know) and he said it was the worst experience of his life. I think for him he just couldn't bear to live without his big screen and gas guzzling SUV, but for me it would be to see how poor some people really are. I should stop complaining about being so broke, huh?
Anyway, yeah, X-Mas. I know it's going to be a great time, even if Karen has to work on the Friday and be back to it on Tuesday. A X-Mas without the materialistic side might be nice for once.
We have a lot of fun giving and getting gifts at Christmas. Over half the gifts the kids get from us are purchased from Thrift Stores over the course of several months. Lots of great books they haven't read, toys we'd never buy them new but just need to add batteries to to make them work. We try to buy them one great item that some families would just get their kids normally but we can only afford them at Christmas. #1 son is getting a used PDA which we purchased on ebay for a great price, it will double as the MP3 player we won't get him and we've downloaded lots of books for him to read on it for free. And good for homework etc. Son 2 is getting a drumming video and a bunch of smaller items he always has on his list like pocketknives, mini-playing cards etc. Son #3 doesn't play with toys but loves music so he's getting a fairly inexpensive Walmart Karaoke machine that he and the others will have a blast with. The oldest two take music lessons so they'll love it too.
As far as giving gifts what I love about it is finding out the unique interests that the one we buy for has. It usually falls into categories like music, books, games some gizmo/toy etc. And of course knowing my hubby hardly ever treats himself with any of these items I love surprising him with some of the things he looks at and leaves.
We hardly ever buy these things on a monthly basis, which many people do,so for us Christmas and birthdays are a treat that we enjoy!
Hey anonymous - welcome to my blog! I should warn you that i may go supersleuth on ya! I go nuts when there is a mystery to be solved, which may be why xmas has always got me guessing what's in the wrapped box!
I've lately ranted a bit with friends about the over-consumption of stuff in life generally, but I do understand the importance of traditions and specialness of giving & receiving gifts. But I wish it wasn't so expected - like Karma or something. I'm more into grace in my life.
G
Post a Comment