Friday Five 19-August

[elusivek]

1. What’s your favorite way to stay cool in late summer?
I used to gorge on ice cream, but now that I've decided to seriously look at the stuff I eat, I just lock myself in an aircon room, or go to the mall, library, wherever, for free air con.

2. Are you ready for autumn yet?
I love autumn, so I don't mind if the entire year is comprised of only autumn!

3. What do you have left to do before summer ends?
Next weekend I'm going to Kenting (south Taiwan), it's something like the Okinawa of Japan (beach, beach, beach!)

4. Has it been a good summer for you?
Yes! I've succesfully shaved off roughly 6KG and I intend to continue!

5. Have you started Christmas shopping yet?
Not yet this year, just because I haven't seen anything good for Christmas (there was one time when I saw something in January that I knew was the perfect gift for a cousin for Christmas, and bought it, and kept it through the year haha)

Comments

[soundofsunlight]

I had the same problem with my family, but after a time we talked it over and stopped doing gifts, and that was a huge relief. Then later we kind of started again, but now we only give one gift each, and only things we'll actually use.

Getting everyone on board was hard at first, but once we agreed it just became the new normal. I think it's really culturally ingrained that you *must* give gifts, so that it doesn't even occur to most people that you could do anything different. And I think that the feeling of obligation results in buying a lot of stuff that people don't really need, just to fulfill that obligation, which is not what a gift should be.

Try talking to them. Wanting to quit might sound kind of radical at first, but if they think it over they might decide that they'd be happier too. Or if not quit, then at least think about changing it so you don't all end up with so much stuff you don't need. It does make the holidays so much nicer. :)

[eyesonstars.livejournal.com]

When you do one gift each, do you mean as in a pool? Like Secret Santa?

[soundofsunlight]

I should have expressed that more clearly. :) To clarify the before and after:

When we were young, my parents would get us to write christmas lists, first to Santa, later to them. They never put a limit on it, and we'd both have maybe half a dozen things on our lists (maybe more...) and my mom would try to get all of them. I assumed this was normal, but maybe not? I do know that she was overcompensating for not getting any of the things she wanted when she was a kid, and she wanted us to be happy. *sigh*

So anyway, with the "one gift each" system, I meant that I'd give one gift to each person, and they'd do the same. So I'd be looking at getting something for three people, and receive three gifts.

[notte0.livejournal.com]

yes, and since our Christmas gather the whole extended family, every christmas I have to hunt for some 20 or so presents (because of the number of presents, we really need to put a limit to the value of each present) and then we receive some 20 presents each (which again, usually is just random items).

Maybe I'll petition that adults don't need presents, that we only get the kids stuff... so we only have to hunt for 6 presents this way... but then the adults get left out..... meh.... it's complicated...

[soundofsunlight]

Yeah, with a big family it gets much more complicated.

Does your family like christmas cards? That might be a nice thing for the adults to exchange instead of presents. I mean, presumably people give each other gifts because they like each other and want to express their appreciation; that might be better accomplished by writing a card saying why you appreciate them, rather than passing around a bunch of stuff that you don't need.

I know not everyone likes cards as much as me, though. :) If not, then there's always the Secret Santa option, where everyone picks a name out of a hat and buys a gift for just that person. So everyone buys one thing and gets one thing. That might be a good compromise actually, if they still want presents, but make it less crazy. And fewer presents would probably also give people a chance to pick something more...better tailored to the recipient, for lack of a better word? I'm drawing a blank right now.

In any case, I wish you the best of luck!

[eyesonstars.livejournal.com]

With big families, gift-giving can be complicated, indeed!

On one side of my family, the cousins tend to be grouped by ages. For example, My sister and I got gifts from my much older cousins until I reached 18 years of age, then I & sis gave gifts to their kids (younger than me) until they reached 18 years old. Then their kids would/are giving gifts to my sister's kids (I'm childless) until my sis' kids hit 18. And so on... There was a $ limit as well...under $10 for under 10 year-olds and under $20 until they hit 18 years old.

The other side of my family does the pick name out of stocking/Secret Santa at Thanksgiving and keep under $50. No repeating same person from the previous year.

There's a sub-set of that side in which we do White Elephant/Chinese Santa gift giving. Still pick name out of bowl but you can't spend any money!! on the gift. The gift has to be either something you got as a gift from someone else but don't want, something you got and forgot to return for trade/credit but still new, something you made and just have extras of. Whatever the gift is it has to be clean and new-ish. Really fun to open in front of others.

I used to do the White Elephant one with some co-workers and we also would bring leftovers from all the Christmas parties we had been the last two-three days. Great way to taste different varieties of potato salad, lol. Cookies, too!

[soundofsunlight]

Oh, I like the White Elephant version too. I like passing things on when I have something I don't use that someone else would appreciate, and I crochet, so making something is always an option. :)

[eyesonstars.livejournal.com]

As long as you don't spend too much money on the yarn, knit away!