Sweet, Dark and Crazy

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Oh Happy Day!

Call me The Grinch if you want to. I don’t care. Tomorrow it will be October and before you know it, the holidays will be upon us. I’ve already had to put in my request for vacation time. I will be off for Thanksgiving but I opted to take the week before Christmas off. Someone had to be in the office for those precious days before Christmas and during the ‘dead’ week between Christmas and New Year’s, it might as well be me. This way the people with kids and those who actually want to spend the holidays with family can do that.

It’s not that I don’t like my family but unless I’m chillin’ at my Aunt Tess’s or over my cousin Jeanie’s, I don’t like it. Spending Christmas with my dad and stepfamily is like spending Christmas with a co-worker that you aren’t close with. You are polite and courteous but it doesn’t really mean anything.

Besides, they all expect gifts for their kids and personally, I don’t feel obligated to buy a gift for someone’s kids because they made the choice to procreate. Great! You have kids! Wonderful! I’m sure it’s an amazing and incomprehensibly fulfilling experience that I will never fully appreciate or understand, but what does it have to do with me? If we aren’t close … If we NEVER talk on the phone, exchange an email or even a post on a Facebook page … if you aren’t even a Facebook friend … if I only see you and your kids maybe once every few years for a couple of hours … if your kids don’t know me from a complete stranger and … if I can’t pick your kid out of a kiddie line-up, why in the hell am I getting that kid a gift?

I don’t know what they want. I don’t know what they like. Sure, I can get them a gift card but why? $25 gift cards for a bunch of kids gets expensive and I can’t even get a wallet-sized photo once a year or a half-way heart-felt thank you.

Also, older kids, like my 17-year old sister, I got news for you. You want to act grown the other 364 days of the year, act grown on Christmas and recognize that you don’t just get gifts ‘just because’ anymore. Throw your name into the gift exchange like everyone else. Welcome to adulthood.

And about that gift exchange…All of us put our names in a hat and you are only required to buy a gift for the person you select instead of trying to get something for everyone. But wait, it isn’t a gift exchange, it’s a “Here’s my list of 3-5 things I want that cost $50. Go buy me one from my list and I’ll buy you one from yours” exchange. Here’s my idea, you take your $50 and buy yourself something you’ll like and I’ll take my $50 and buy something I like and this way, everybody gets what they want and you can bypass the whole gift wrapping thing. Save a tree … buy your own damn gift.

Labels: Family, Rant

posted by SDC @ 1:59 PM

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