I agree---case in point.
This year has brought a lot of changes (*duh*) and most of my family is tight in the budget department. So my sisters were trying to decide what to do about the gift exchange. We had ruled out exchanging among the adults (we say that every year, but still usually give some little something just to say 'I love you') and they were angsting over the kids. My two sisters have three children between them aged 8/9 to almost 2. We have four, aged almost 19 to 12.
Well, I suggested what I thought would be great fun, a handmade 'coupon' fo reach person good for one 'XXX' redeemable before Christmas 2002. You know, everyone has some kind of talent or craft or something. After much e-mailing back and forth, I finally almost got the point across that the coupon could be as 'little' as "You will have the pleasure of my company for a day" or "One free session when you can rant and rave at me when you're pissed off so you won't kill the boss (or kids)" or as 'large' as a gift basket handmade by the coupon presenter for personal or gift-giving purposes (that's more my area, both of my sisters are time- and craft-impaired [img]smile.gif[/img] ). All I wanted was for someone to teach me how to french braid! [img]smile.gif[/img]
Well, this evidently was not considered 'proper' Christmas gift giving and summarily dismissed
. They decided taking all the kids to a movie instead would be a better present. Ok, *you* find a movie that age range 19 to *2* will enjoy!!! Harry Potter was suggested, but dismissed as 'too adult' (?) and they are looking for a 'Christmas' movie---can anyone say boring?!?
::throws hands up::
BTW, (no flaming or otherwise pyrotechnic exhibition now!) I happen to like the 'paganistic muddled confusion'---it keeps a smile on my face when my local oh-so-self-righteous Christians go on their annual pagan-bashing spree trying to *prove* that the first Christmas celebration and all its subsequent paraphenalia (tree, gifts, Santa, etc) was 2000 years ago in some manger and that's how it *all* got started (did the donkey brings the pretty blinky lights or was that one of the wise men? [img]smile.gif[/img] )