The Christmas Gift Gaff

Christmas 2014 is history and it left some surprising droppings in its wake.

As I have previously, I created a custom Jake-themed Christmas card, this time using a Groupon for Staples. I also created matching postage stamps. Hysterically, the people who own Jake's daycare, Alpine-Vistah Kennels -- a wonderful married couple who have seen my golden 3X per week for more than 10 years, asked me if it was really Jake on the card they received. I actually received several cards with a note that read, "We LOVED your card!" Awesome.

I dramatically cut down the number of folks who got cards to around 50. So many people have never sent me a card and I finally just decided enough was enough. I actually received 25 cards this year, but at least half the cards I send are to people for whom I enjoy performing the ritual.

However, I did have one bit of family weirdness. First, some context: a couple of years ago, I decided it was time to stop giving my adult nephews Christmas gifts. I don't remember any uncles or aunts gifting us into adulthood and all three "boys" are grown and married. The oldest, Josh, has two small children who I absolutely intended to continue to gift. But the nephews? Enow. And so, I gave the message to my brother: tell the boys that I don't want gifts from them and I wanted to stop the return gifting. Instead, we will do our Chinese dinner on Christmas Eve and then enjoy the rest of our holiday. My brother agreed that the cessation of gifting was overdue, agreed he couldn't remember getting gifts once we were grown and agreed to explain it to his sons. I thought I was off the hook.

Then, a few days before that Christmas, Tom let me know that the nephews were rebelling and buying me gifts anyway. Now I am not wired to accept gifts without giving gifts. I'm the guy who has a small supply of wrapped "just in case" gifts awaiting last-minute gift tags. So, I went to Amazon and bought them all gifts from their wish lists. Feh.

The next Christmas I made the same attempt with the same result -- they gifted me and I return gifted them. I pretty much decided that it was my lot in life.

This Christmas, I just bit the bullet, set a limit, attacked their wish lists and dragged two huge boxes of gifts with me to the Chinese restaurant. Much to my surprise, the eldest, Josh, explained that unexpected car repairs caused him to come up short for Christmas presents. He said he would get me something in January. The youngest, Patrick, gave no gifts and offered no explanations. Only the middle nephew, Andrew, ironically the one who is unemployed, got me a gift. So did my brother, but he and I are always going to exchange birthday and Christmas gifts.

So, I see this as my opening to stop the gifting. I changed my Amazon wish list to "private" in an attempt to prevent Josh from following up, if that is even a possibility. I neither want nor need anything on that list. I want to stop the insanity!!! We'll see how it goes.

Even without gifts from the 'phrews, I did pretty good, as shown below.

And now 2015 is upon us. I suspect there will be some life changes in this calendar cycle. Time will tell. To be continued...