OMG! Someboday Stop Me-- I Am The Anti-Christmas-Gift B*tch

I just closed a email response to all of my family members with this:

"Love (and respect, even if it doesn't come across in this tirade),
Clearly Freaking Insane Aubrey"

Never good.  Never good.

It was in response to a "Christmas 2011" (are-we-exchanging-gifts-this-year) email...that is a dead-ringer for the "Christmas 2010" one and the "Christmas 2009" one...ad nauseum.  I'm not sure about your extended family, but here's the thing about ours, while we love each other and have a really nice time spending Christmas together, that's about the extent of our cuddly togetherness time.  So it is really impossible to know what meaningful and useful item to give a person that you don't really know on a deeper-than-superficial-level.

If a gift isn't personal, I don't really get the point.  Isn't it just a mindless, heartless exchange?  (Been accused of that one in the past, too...)  Various people in my various family groups love, love, love giving and receiving gifts.  To them, that's Christmas: There is an expression of love in the act of giving--even if it is a random token gift...that's probably been made in China...and may or may not be bacon strip band-aids or fart-flavored tootpaste...

To me, and call me cheap or Scroogey if you must, but Christmas is about spending time with the ones that you love (the ones that you maybe don't get to spend enough time with the rest of the year) and, well, hello!, Christ.  I love the decorations, the music, the food, the fireplace, and the movies.  I do!  I really love Christmas...the spirit of it, the stories that go along with it, and of course the traditions--with the marked exception of superfluous gift-giving for the sake of gift-giving.

Is anybody with me?  Or do I stand alone in my disgust for Black Friday's consumer frenzy?  Do I stand alone wishing that preparing for Christmas involved something more genuine than purchasing STUFF?  I feel dirty making a "Christmas list" or shopping for trinkets when so many go hungry or are cold...or are lacking the most basic essentials.  It feels so wrong to me.

And yet, I feel very much like "Clearly Freaking Insane Aubrey," as the rest of the world bustles past me with bags busting with stuff....like I'm the crazy one...