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A Capitalist Christmas

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Josefbugman:
Maybe you should ask for some coinage?

Barmymoo:
For some incomprehensible reason my family, or at least my immediate family, do not like giving me money as a gift if they know it will be spent on rent and food. Apparently those things are not really presents.

Zingoleb:
I remember one time I had a discussion with my grandmother who wanted to spend fifty dollars on me for Christmas, but what I really needed was...fifty dollars. She was claiming you couldn't wrap money, but she instead could buy a Wal-mart gift card and wrap that instead. I thought about it and asked her for a new wallet - she could put the rest of the money in the wallet and wrap that, instead! She thought about this for a long moment before suddenly exclaiming, "I know! I could put the gift card in your wallet!"

schimmy:
Since starting uni, I can't decide whether I am in favour of receiving money as a gift any more. It just instantly goes on alleviating a little bit of the debt that I am in. This is, of course, extremely useful, but it feels like I'm not really getting a present, and I'm not even sure it helps all that much - when I'm a few hundred pounds into my overdraft, is it really worth not getting anything for Christmas just so I can have less debt?
On the other hand, I am goddamn awful at knowing what I want for Christmas. I feel like a chump asking for CDs or DVDs - these things are free normally, why would you pay for them?! But when you take out media consumption, my only real expenses turn out to be rent, food and utility bills, which brings us back to money as a present.

It doesn't really bother me much though. What I like about Christmas is that it's the only time of year that I get to spend any time at all with my family now that all my siblings are either at uni, or graduated and living in the Real World, far away from me.

Barmymoo:
The gift side of christmas I find frankly impossible to handle. My mum's approach for the last few years has been to buy me something which I need at any time of the year, and designate it my Christmas present, which is much easier. This year I'm getting some walking boots which were on sale in about August. My dad buys me junk that has no function but is mildly amusing (cow-patterned stuff, mostly, as Jens could attest if he ever came here any more). My brother went through a phase of not buying anything at all, and then had a spending spurge and bought me a whole bunch of kitchen utensils this summer as my 17th-20th birthday presents and all the christmases in there. Much better. It's all the grandparents and aunts and uncles who are the issue because I can't just say to them "forget it, I don't want anything" or they'll be offended but I really don't! Especially not a fluffy light-up pink glitter pen. Take note, aunts.

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