Can’t Christmas Be More Like Thanksgiving

I’m finding gift giving incredibly difficult this year. I’ve scoured the Internet, I’ve searched the mall and I still can’t figure out what to buy my loved ones. I wish Christmas was more like Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is such a perfect holiday. It’s an excuse to eat a lot of food, spend time with your loved ones, pass out on the couch after eating aforementioned food and then watch football. During that holiday we count our blessings, tell each other how grateful we are to have one another in our lives and eat.

Christmas is much more stressful, because in addition to all of the family type gatherings and activities you have to add on the heavy weight of gift giving. I’ve recommended forgoing gifts from time to time with my family, but at the end of the day I can’t seem to get anyone behind the idea.

It’s not a money thing. It’s not a humbug thing. I’m not a scrooge. I just think we spend way too much time and energy searching around for the perfect gift only to find that the receiver is typically not as thrilled with the present as we are.

I think Christmas should be more like Thanksgiving. We should count our blessings, eat good food and spend time with the ones we love. In fact, we should spend less time in the malls scouring for gifts and more time with each other baking cookies, taking winter walks and building warm fires.

I’m tired of a Christmas in which I give a person a $25 gift card to one store and they give me a $25 gift card to another. I think gifts should be optional. We can still buy a Christmas tree, we can still hang all the lights, we just won’t put any presents beneath it. In exchange, we’ll ask for each other’s time. Time to visit, go shopping, cook meals together, go to the movies, cry on one another’s shoulder, laugh over nothing, whatever the event just time together with the people we love.

What a dream that would be.

6 thoughts on “Can’t Christmas Be More Like Thanksgiving”

  1. Instead of giving gifts this year, everyone in the family bought a 9 day stay at an all inclusive resort in the tropics. No gifts allowed! I don't know that this is something we will be able to do every year, but it sure made the holidays easy and exciting this year.

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  2. What about us poor Aussies we don,t have a Thanksgiving.
    Maybe I could start a new Holiday, now when to have it, maybe right around my Birthday time LOL 🙂

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  3. My son wrecked my car last week and it won't be repaired before Christmas. Also, since he's 19 our insurance rates are about to skyrocket. When I spoke with my Mom about not coming home for Christmas, she told me not to buy gifts for anyone in the family and that they would give us cash for Christmas. We are each others' gifts this year.

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  4. Ugh! I completely agree! I LOVE Thanksgiving. We have 2 small kids so Christmas is really fun at their age but I hate the pressure to get a lot of gifts and it tends to lead to overspending. My insurance for staying within my budget is using ebay and buying throughout the year.

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  5. @Anonymous – That's a great idea. I bet you could find ways to take a cheaper vacation so you could sustain that tradition year after year.

    @Maureen – You should start your own holiday 🙂

    @Pam – Sorry to hear about your son and the car, but glad that you're going to spend time with the ones you love.

    @Jerry – I haven't turned to eBay, but I do look for bargains throughout the year too!

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