That’s great that you and your hubby are on the same page when it comes to avoiding Christmas shopping and obligatory Christmas events! That’s one of the keys to bonding as a couple — agreeing on the best way to spend Christmas, spend money on Christmas, etc.

I have to admit that I love, love, LOVE opening presents on Christmas morning! I find it so fun and exciting…it just makes me feel happy. It’s not the stuff, it’s the mystery of what’s in the packages and tearing open the gifts and smiling for the camera I’d miss that.

Thanks for giving us a different way to look at Christmas, Gini.

Laurie

For our honeymoon (10 years ago) we went to Mexico over xmas and while relaxing on the beach we commented on how wonderful it was to not be rushing around in the stores and spending money on gifts we didn’t really want to purchase (and didn’t know what to get our teenage nieces and nephews anymore as they were growing up so fast we couldn’t keep track). We saw how consumerism runs xmas through gift buying as well as obligations to attend events we were happy to be missing that year.

So we decided to do that every year – not go to Mexico- but to pass on the gift exchange (except for a few gifts for eachother and anything we were inspired to purchase for someone else in our lives at the time). We also decided to stop going to obligatory xmas events including family ones – it took a little while for people to understand, but now others are ok with it and we often spend xmas on our own, enjoying our own meaning of it (which for us is more meaningful around the winter Solstice).

The season holds no stress for me now – I just enjoy the fun parts like putting up pretty xmas lights outside on our trees.

Gini