Christmas Regrets

I fairly well hate giving and recieving gifts. It's a fun tradition, but I think it has gone way overboard into gross materialism. In addition, I'm too much of a perfectionist so the process tends to get gummed up.

First, I'm a cheap skate, and I always figure out the perfect gift after I purchased the gift I thought was perfect.

Then, people give me gifts, and I feel guilty for recieving nice stuff or having had anyone spend money on me, or miffed that whatever gift was too big/small/ugly/redundant. Then I feel guilty for being miffed.

If I was to architect the tradition, all gifts for the season would have to fit into the persons stocking. The could accumulate there as people visited over the holiday. January 4th could be stocking day. "What did santa bring? Oh neat! Now get on the bus, don't be late for school..."

Fortunately, this Christmas was low on the materialistic end. There was a balance of guilt and genuinely thoughtful gifts.

It was fun watching my brother unwrap all the chocolate bars I got him. It is intriguing to see reactions.

I also got to spend lots of time with people I love. We sat around, drank coffee, talked, and most of them didn't get me anything at all.

The weather turned sour, so we had to leave before I was socialised to exhaustion.

The whole day was pretty magnificent.

Of course, I stupidly left my camera in my bag the whole time.

I regret not taking a few photos.