F.... Keeping up with the Jones's

[msm1971]

I think Hog1 is on the right path. My wife and I make good money and can afford pretty nice gifts for our kids, but being an engineer I started looking at things differently over the last couple of years. What I found was that regardless of what we get our kids it always winds up in a closet, broken or put away in their room someplace 6 months down the road so we keep it simple, like things that they need, then we decided that we would take 300 bucks, spend 150 on cheap toys and 150 on socks, t-shirts, underwear etc. The toys go to the kids in the local childrens hospital and the socks t-shirts etc. go to the veterans in the VA hospital here in town. My kids have more fun donating and watching other kids than they do opening big expensive gifts at home. Not to say we don't get our kids stuff, we do but its more needful things rather than stuff they want. I agree with many of you that Christmas has become the "I just one up'ed you-HA" holiday and thats not what it's about. I just want some time off to spend with my family. My wife's family used to do the name drawing thing and it ended up a competition so last year she told her mom that we are opt'ing out and getting gifts for those that really need them. By the way, I hope everyone does have a good relaxing holiday.