Having Christmas without presents.

You know you've grown up a bit when it's more about giving than receiving.

I still hear the odd manchild getting excited because "our lass is buying me X for Christmas", usually referring to items costing between a few hundred and a few thousand. These aren't wealthy people either.

I look forward to it for the atmosphere, the food, the break from work and spending some quality time with friends and family.
 
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People have changed over the generations, i am an uncle to 8 and my family and extended family gave them presents for xmas and birthdays their entire life. Now they are out working they and making money you would think they may for once in their life give a present to their grandparents at least.

No chance, they are generation spoilt brats.
 
dave28 said:
People have changed over the generations, i am an uncle to 8 and my family and extended family gave them presents for xmas and birthdays their entire life. Now they are out working they and making money you would think they may for once in their life give a present to their grandparents at least.

No chance, they are generation spoilt brats.
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Sounds like you gave expecting to recieve.
Not really in the spirit of it.

This is why I hate gift giving so much.
 
Funnily enough this is the first year where my parents have suggested we don't buy each other anything. We're having them over for a few days so just food and drinks and their company will be lovely. Takes the pressure out of finding things for them along with the expense. We've got us all theatre tickets so get to experience something together instead which I'm all for.
 
Zatoichi.uK said:
Funnily enough this is the first year where my parents have suggested we don't buy each other anything. We're having them over for a few days so just food and drinks and their company will be lovely. Takes the pressure out of finding things for them along with the expense. We've got us all theatre tickets so get to experience something together instead which I'm all for.
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This is so much better!
Its better to make the time to be with someone than get gifts.
Especially doing an experience type of thing.
 
I love giving Christmas presents, trying to find the things that people will actually like and find useful, or that will just plain annoy them. My family don't really do birthdays, but always do Christmas. I think this year in total for family I will have bought about 20 presents. The mad one I do is my and my best mate since we were 10, are now in the position in life where we can be silly so we have started doing presents for each other, often the gifts are based on a single throwaway comment during one conversation or something that will make me laugh and smile at his reaction, but some are obviously well thought out and based on our likes.

Last year did get a bit silly though as he ended up with about 18 things to open and I wrapped everything in Amazon sized packaging to make it so his christmas tree had about 3 foot of presents around it, so this year we said maximum 15 things to upwrap and a £200 limit. I bought the first thing for this year on 27th of December last year and buy things across the year, so the expense per month is no more than a meal at five guys.
 
Nope, my brothers, mum birthdays are in December. It got too expensive, so I asked them 10 years ago to pick one. Birthday or Christmas for presents. They all picked birthdays.

But I'm considering becoming a JW and avoiding it all together!
 
10 Days off work, awesome food, booze flowing and the sheer joy in my kids on Christmas day morning. Me and the wife don't do gifts anymore though.
 
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cheesefest said:
My parents and family don't do Christmas presents. We buy gifts for birthdays which are more personal.

For Christmas, I buy the food and some of the drinks - thanks to the discount I get at my work. My parents contribute with the rest of the drinks and cooking what needs cooking.

I get mixed comments from people - most say its a great idea as that way, the food and drinks are used. Others say Christmas is about giving.

There's no need to buy presents for everyone as some get put in a cupboard and forgotten about. Some get listed on eBay almost straight away - 40k+ results for "unwanted Christmas present" on eBay last BD and similar to unwanted Xmas gift too. Then some presents, such as the tubs of the inferior chocolate, toiletries gift sets etc scream to me 'Not thought much'.

I remember a lady who bought about 40 tubs of these inferior chocolates (the same one) and said to my colleague "That's all my Christmas presents shopping done in one shop". I despaired her friends and family - as for example - a family of four related to her would got 4 of these.

There's no point getting skint over buying presents for those who won't use them.

Anyone else like me who don't do Christmas presents?
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:rolleyes:
 
unwashed potato! said:
i haven't done xmas presents for about 10 years now. took many years to get family to actually not buy anything as most thought i was just saying i don't want anything and still bought some rubbish, which made it really awkward at xmas to get junk and act like you're grateful that they wasted money on you.

funny as i had so many people tell me how they agreed with my reasoning and would like to do the same as me but they couldn't stop themselves, they would buy someone something because they knew that other person was going to buy them something, which only happened for the same reason, and in the end, both parties are wasting £20 - £40 for each person they do this for, and end up with complete junk.

fast forward to a few years ago, and no one in my family does presents any more other than for the kids (all are 5 or less) and they all love it! we no longer waste money, no longer have to act thankful for the most thoughtless waste of money (lynx body wash as a guy springs to mind), and we can now all spend more money on the day doing more fun things together.
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Hah!

That reminded me of one Xmas I got my nephew some Lynx product as a prezzie, and I got it back next year! :p
 
I could very much do without presents at Christmas. I'm 39, I am thankfully in a position where I can within reason afford to buy what I want/need.
What's more important to me is people's time, in a world where we all seem busier and busier, I see less and less of family and friends. Add to that how increasingly geographically distributed we all are. Christmas seems to be that one time of the year where my family and friends take concerted effort to get together and spend time with each other. Probably sounds really cheesy but that is all I want and what makes the holiday season special for me.
 
radderfire said:
I think agreements to buy fewer presents are a good thing, as a lot of presents are just for the sake of it and not really useful/wanted, so it's wasteful.
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Presents are fine for kids because they don't have the cash to buy their own and it gives a buzz to parents to see their reaction but for adults its largely pointless unless you're bringing a bottle of booze or mince pies or something like that
 
Lokai said:
10 Days off work, awesome food, booze flowing and the sheer joy in my kids on Christmas day morning. Me and the wife don't do gifts anymore though.
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Want to swap?
Couldn’t book BD as I changed my department and only code checker in! Not sure of my hours yet. Hopefully not finishing after 5/5:30pm. Doesn’t matter as the BDs in ‘24 and ‘25 fall on my days off. If anyone comes up to me on BD saying it’s a disgrace or it’s a shame that you are working today. Well WTBF are you doing in a supermarket on day you should think they should be closed??

Those who shop on Boxing Day are either- never worked in retail, have zero respect for retail staff or both!

Got NYD off which is good. One NYD, we took just 9% of a typical day of what we take on an average of whatever day it falls on. What’s the bloody point??

I probably be asked to start earlier on Xmas Eve as want as much delivery in chillers and shelves before we open. Remember as it falls on Sunday - supermarkets in England and Wales can’t serve customers before 10am. Customers shop because of the date, not the day.

Seeing my Nanan on 21/12 and on the day after - doing sod all, bar a visit to the gym.

My two days off between Christmas and NY - again doing sod all.

I worked full time for 21 years and the only time I didn’t go into work between Christmas and New Year was ‘06/‘07 as working in a call centre. Had severe laryngitis which lasted 10 days. No other work to do.
 
cheesefest said:
Want to swap?
Couldn’t book BD as I changed my department and only code checker in! Not sure of my hours yet. Hopefully not finishing after 5/5:30pm. Doesn’t matter as the BDs in ‘24 and ‘25 fall on my days off. If anyone comes up to me on BD saying it’s a disgrace or it’s a shame that you are working today. Well WTBF are you doing in a supermarket on day you should think they should be closed??

Those who shop on Boxing Day are either- never worked in retail, have zero respect for retail staff or both!

Got NYD off which is good. One NYD, we took just 9% of a typical day of what we take on an average of whatever day it falls on. What’s the bloody point??

I probably be asked to start earlier on Xmas Eve as want as much delivery in chillers and shelves before we open. Remember as it falls on Sunday - supermarkets in England and Wales can’t serve customers before 10am. Customers shop because of the date, not the day.

Seeing my Nanan on 21/12 and on the day after - doing sod all, bar a visit to the gym.

My two days off between Christmas and NY - again doing sod all.

I worked full time for 21 years and the only time I didn’t go into work between Christmas and New Year was ‘06/‘07 as working in a call centre. Had severe laryngitis which lasted 10 days. No other work to do.
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What is your line of work?
 
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