This year we decided to rebel against our traditional holiday schedule and stay home for the holiday! Escaping the Christmas mania will be fabulous! No commitments or obligations – well except to each other and the cats.
Moving to Sacramento was an excellent financial and health related decision. We’ve been in town for about 8 months, but haven’t taken the time to go out to many restaurants or museums. Getting to know Sac better will be fun. Also our biking time has been limited since I starting training for the marathon. I can’t wait to spend Christmas day biking up and down the American River Trail and eating lots of good food.
Honestly, I loathe Christmas. Spending time with family isn’t the problem, it’s the pressure to get gifts for everyone. Christmas consumerism is scary. That is evident by the recent Wal-Mart death.
What to do about gifts? Well…
This year we told family and friends NOT to get us anything. If folks really want to get us a gift, it is my hope they will donate to a local charity, give college money to kids in our family or spend more time with us in Sacramento. Besides we can’t keep collecting stuff! A tiny house doesn’t have room for extra things.
I am tired of playing the gift game every year and we finally had the courage to say NO MORE PLEASE. Yay!
Image from talis.com
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice! I really loathe the pressure to get gifts for everyone too. There is so much more to life then just “stuff.”
I just got rid of a ton of “stuff” over the Thanksgiving break. Wow…what a relief! But I still have a long way to go.
Awesome! Thanks for the great post!
Congratulations! I withdrew from the holiday gift exchange 9 years ago. Unfortunately, my parents won’t stop sending me something, but I have convinced them (most of the time) to select things I can eat or use up: Harry & David snacks, soap, candles. I have stuck to the decision on my part, with exceptions for young children. And I tend to give them gifts for birthdays rather than christmas/winter holiday. I also stopped traveling to visit family this time of year, which limits what they can easily give me and drasticlaly reduces the amount of stress in my life.
Thanks for your comments…
We will probably stop traveling at this time of the year, it’s just to stressful. A no stress holiday, at home, will be fabulous!
Some of my relatives have told me, “Christmas is what you make it.” Well that is true to a certain extent. But even though I don’t make the holiday into a gift giving event, other family members put the focus on consumerism. In the end, that doesn’t make for a fun holiday.
Thanks for reading RowdyKittens.
My recent birthday reminded me of the fact that I quite literally don’t want anything as far as gifts go, and I’m trying to figure out how to inform my family of this. My mom goes overboard each year and I’m hoping this year to tell her that we don’t want a lot of ‘stuff’ – we’d much rather have gift cards to restaurantes or for groceries or gas. Spending less of our paychecks on gas and groceries would mean more $ to go towards the things we want in our lives – like paying down debts or saving away for vacations.
I realize that I’m a year and a half or so late to this particular entry, but I was curious to see how no-gifts holidays have worked out for you. Has your family been supportive of your decision?
Hey Candice – thanks for leaving a comment. It’s funny – one side of our family has been super supportive. We don’t give gifts anymore, which rocks.
But our other side of the family refuses to cooperate on the gift front. It’s been frustrating because I don’t want or need anymore stuff. However, they have cut down on the number of gifts they give us. And that has been cool.
I’ll have to update the post as we get closer to the holiday season.
Ohhhh and maybe you could ask your mom to donate to a local charity? That worked with my mom.
Best of luck to you!