This Christmas, like every other year for as long as I can remember, I've tried to convince my family to draw names for gifts. In my - admittedly oversimplified - way of thinking, this is just smart and simple. Everyone's got 1,000 things going on this time of year from company parties, gift exchanges at work, buying gifts for clients, decorating the house, etc. And that's just the stuff Christmas adds to whatever else you have going on. In my case, I struggle and fight each week to make 40 hours of work so I can pay my bills. I have school going on with finals on the week before Christmas. Everyone in my family has a similar story with different chores, worries, and names. So it makes sense that instead of driving all over buying a dozen+ gifts, then spending a whole night wrapping them all, we could put everyone's name in a hat and draw a name. That person would get the entire christmas budget spent on him/her in one single shopping/wrapping experience. They get a great gift, everyone saves time. Perfect.
Not quite.
I'm not quite sure where this conversation derails into an argument in my family but it does. Every year. It seems that telling someone they "shouldn't/can't" buy a gift for everyone in the family is like asking them to sever an important limb and bleed to death.
Am I romanticizing Christmas too much by wanting it to be more about presence and less about presents? Hypothetically, wouldn't you rather have a relative who lived out of state spend the little money they had to travel to be with you on Christmas than buy gifts for everyone and send them to you instead? When did it come to this?
99% of my family doesn't step foot in a church *any church* ever! Yet we hold on to and cherish this Christian holiday tradition as if it were sacred to our souls! By carrying the "draw names" flag every year, it's been insinuated by some that I'm a bah humbug scrooge. Really?
What I love about Christmas...
Decorating my house and setting up a Christmas tree, the Christmas music (I can stand it for a month), the egg nog, the fires in the fireplace, the parties and friends, wearing a sweater, seeing snow on the mountains (hopefully), seeing the Gay Men's Choir in San Francisco, and on and on.
What I hate about Christmas...
Fighting crowds in malls and in mall parking lots, wrapping gifts, struggling to figure out what to buy everyone for $25 that they won't be throwing away the week after Christmas.
See why I might really love the idea of drawing names? Now, if you can honestly tell me that you love the second list, then by God, go get 'em tiger. I'm willing to bet that you hate those things too. So why do we do it? Why do we take time away from the first list because we "have to" do what's in the second list? What if, just once, we took the time to just be a family together, and we spent more time this season doing what's on the first list and less doing what's on the second? Would that be so terrible? Would it be so terrible to show up at Christmas with something cool you bought yourself with the money you saved from not shopping for everyone other than the person whose name you drew? Would it be so terrible to show up refreshed and not stressed out on Christmas? Ready to socialize and get a little buzz on in anticipation of the great dinner that would be coming later?
If wanting that makes me a scrooge, then I'll wear that badge with pride.
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