going cold turkey at christmas

Not an ipod

If you could wave a wand and completely reinvent our Christmas traditions, how would you have them change?

I'd obliterate high-volume gift-shopping - but then, everyone I know wants to be more humbuggy at Christmas, because everyone has cut up their credit cards.  At the same time, notwithstanding the credit crunch, going into town at the moment still involves dealing with only slightly less congestion than going on hajj.  Lack of funds might force people to rediscover the true meaning of Christmas this year (something to do with the the baptism of Father Christmas, I recall) - and that's a good thing.  For too long, Christmas has meant buying people things that they wouldn't ever buy themselves, and seeing how much contempt we can make family familiarity breed.  It's time, I think, for us to amend our Christmas traditions so that the focus is less on buying stuff.

Personally, when it comes to gifts, I'd rebrand Christmas as a time when everyone buys a book - and nothing else! - for everyone on their list.  Books are personal, edifying, and relatively cheap.  Money usually spent on non-literary rubbish could be given to thoughtfully-chosen charities (there's a thought, eh?) and everyone would get to start the year with an armful of lovely books.  Perhaps someone could promulgate the superstition that it's lucky to read all the books you get for Christmas before the next Christmas comes around.  Or bad luck not to.

Kids, of course, would despise this tradition, because they want mobile phones, video game consoles, and real estate.  I have not yet decided whether kids may opt out this tradition; but you are free to tell your kids to blame me for whatever decision I arrive at.

I was thinking about the idea of giving to charity wholly in lieu of gifts (as in, 'I sponsored a llama for you!  Merry Christmas, Aunt Elsie.')  But there's the obvious danger that some charities would be neglected and 'cute' charities favoured, for fear of giving the 'recipient' the wrong impression.  A gift made to a polar bear charity might tickle big white-bearded Uncle Bob; sponsorship of a scrofula clinic, on the other hand, is hard to make relevant anyone's personality in a complimentary way, unless the 'recipient' has scrofula, which I'm not sure even exists any more.  Any thoughts?

Incidentally, I've just finished my shopping.  Did it all online.  Bought loads of stuff nobody wants, but which courtesy dictates they will have to thank me for.

Maybe next year, eh?