BankOnCroc

[skawinski]

Every year I see this Christmas shopping craze with people spending hundreds and thousands of [insert currency] each to come in possession of more items, for gifts or personal benefit. And that's fine, I do that as well, but every time I do that I at least try to figure out whether it's something I need/the other recipent needs or wants

Comments

[rustyfox]

I've done that this year to the St Catherines food bank close to where you used to live (there's links with where I work). Other donations throughout the year, but I'm going to see this becomes more regular again. It did tail off for a few months.

I'm having similar (maybe worse!) misgivings about Christmas. Strangely, I've noticed as my personal wealth slowly increases year on year, I'm becoming more and more disillusioned with Christmas. I feel guilty.

Christmas has turned into an extravagant festival of excess, of gluttony and selfishness and sheer greedy indulgence. Sure, we might spend lots and sometimes overstretch ourselves spending what we don't have on 'stuff' for other people close to us. We might do that because we genuinely want to make someone happy, or because we feel compelled to. We're told by inescapable media that Christmas is a time of "family", a time to "come together" and "celebrate" (and all the while spend), but all I see is isolation everywhere.

Not everyone has much of a family, or any family. Christmas

[skawinski]

Same here, thinking about it on a deeper level I also feel some sort of guilt. What I've achieved is not just my own work but also other people's help and some generous dose of luck - there's lots of people who are short on those last two, and to go beyond looking solely after your own personal needs and showing concern for others is something extremely commendable

[porsupah]

It's an entirely fair point. Not that receiving or giving gifts is anything bad, but it's a little odd to see just how much people seem to spend for Christmas. That said, I did buy myself a few goodies of a practical and cute nature. =:) For giving to others, though - that's more something I'm inclined to just go for at any point in the year, rather than any particular occasion. Mum and I won't be exchanging gifts, beyond just enjoying plenty of good food and drink together. ^_^

There is, of course, no shortage of good charities around (not including the Red Cross, given their abysmal accounting of what on earth happened to the huge amount donated to Haiti, with almost nothing to show for it), like Doctors without Borders, although Merlin seems to do better on the aspect of spending less on promotion, more on actual aid. I've had a small standing order with AICR (now WCR, apparently) running for a few years, given a few aunts and one cousin succumbed to the ravages of breast cancer

[skawinski]

Oh yes, I enjoy giving away gifts to family and friends, often much more than I enjoy receiving them. There's nothing wrong with that but looking at it deeper I can at least personally see that the wealth of things around me is such that there's no excuse for not sharing some of it with others, in one form or another