For me, Christmas is a combination of joy and anxiety. Joy for being with family and anxiety about buying gifts. I hate the buying of gifts. I love money and I have always suffered from what I consider a valid fear of never having enough. Throwing hard earned money away on gifts just to avoid guilt of not giving enough presents pouring money down the drain. At my age, you'd think I'd be smarter or would have figured out a better way to handle the self-inflicted anxiety. Maybe I am a little better than I was ten years ago, but right now, three days before Christmas, I still have the guilt of sufficient gift giving wrestling in my head with my inner accountant. Regardless of who wins, I still have to endure the near bone breaking attempts of one to pin the other.
Maybe a better gift would be to write a letter to your grandchildren. Certainly not the young ones. Human nature and social norms as they are, could only mean heartache and confusion for any child age one to twenty. But as they get older and we get older, there is more value and rational thought in giving something less expensive, but far more valuable - your life stories and your best words of wisdom. Give them real gold, not fool's gold. You have one whole year to write a letter and give it as a gift next year rather than new socks with fish on them.
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