Don't know what you get your honey for Christmas? Don't be looking here for any ideas.

It's not that I don't love the holidays. I do I do! I love tinsel and glitter and the smell of [real] pine (the fake stuff, not so much). I just got back from the supermarket and my nose is twitching because I spent a full five minutes with it buried in the evergreen wreath display. I didn't buy anything; I just soaked up smells.

I love wrapping gifts, making like Martha with the matching paper and ribbon. See--this is from a couple of years ago:
This year, though, I'm eschewing all attempts at gift-giving jollity. I refuse to participate in that Times are Tough so Look Happy That I Bought You Toilet Paper--and stuck a fuckin' bow on it. I will not indulge in an orgy of fake bling exchanges. If I can't trade the real stuff with my nearest and dearest--well, then I won't.

I come from a family mired in giftgiving bullshit. Did I say that nicely enough? My sister, bless her little heart, loves to give presents and she will give them to you whether you want them or not. I'm not sure why she loves to give presents. What's the exchange there for her? It's not that she treasures hunting for the perfect gift, because more often than not, unless she's been given a list (which her kids learned to do when they could barely write), she will give something that she likes without a thought that you would not be caught dead in it. And it's not that she's found that perfect something for you on vacation last year and tucked it away till the holidays. If she did, she can't find it. And if she can find it, she is pleased to tell you she can't remember what it is. This is, one might say, passive-aggressive gift giving honed to a fine art.

Consequently and as a result as well--I tend to view gift giving as a chore that causeth me to break out in hives. If I were, that is, a hive-y sort of person; which I'm not (although I do have a few sneezing type allergies). Thus, this year I am declaring that The Economy Is Too Bad for me to even consider gifting others (you like gifting as a verb? how about toileting as a verb?). And next year? Perhaps I'll still be recovering from this year.

News bulletin: I had just about put the period on that last sentence when my doorbell did ring and who should appear but a friend bearing a frothy golden beribboned package. Well, shit--.